
; ■ , ;^ » n> ill ; : 









li; 






i:^^ 




o^ -, 










-S-^ 



,^^ 'P. 






0°^ 



<" -it. 









NKiJf^ 






V ^ 



% / ^,«': '% .^' ^mv= % ^ 



i"^- 











' c « "^ <- « 



o 0' 





. „ . ^ ^. 




^■\ 


^^ 






% V 



H^^^. 



r ^^^ -^c.. 







x^'^^. 




^ ,0- 



.00 ^ teU- 






.0 



.\Y 







% 
/ 



s:??^ ^ "o o"^ 



- ■■■■ - ° -^c,*^ 




-?', 






Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2010 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/newhistoryofconqOOwils 



g^- 



THE AUTHOR'S EXPLANATION. 

DansviUe, JV. T., February 2d, 1859. 
To Messrs. Challen & Son : — 

I REGRET very much that my Histoi-y should make its appearance just at this 
time, when the community are shocked with the announcement of the death 
of our distinguished historian, Mr. Prescott, lest some careless persons should 
suppose I was assailing the memory of the dead. It so happens that 
the most kindly relations existed between us in his lifetime, though ever tak- 
ing diametrically opposite grounds on all Spanish questions ; he assuming 
that the books and MSS. sent to him from Madrid were reliable authorities, 
while I insisted on the lawyer's privilege of sifting the evidence — a labor he 
was incapable of performing, from a physical infirmity. Mr. Prescott's esti- 
mate of my researches is contained in the following letter. 

Yours, truly, 

R. A. Wilson. 

''Boston, March 11, 1857. 
"Dear Sir: — 

"I have had the pleasure of receiving your note of the 9th inst., enclosing 
the preface to the new edition of your work. I am very sorry to learn that your 
health is so delicate as to make it necessary for you to make another excursion 
to the South. I should think that in Peru you must find the favorable climate 
that you want. 

"From your preface, as well as your note, I see you are making clean work 
of the Aztec civilization. If you do as much with the Peruvian, there will 
be little left to stand on upon this continent but a myth. 

"I don't see why you should hesitate in regard to the prosecution of your 
labors, when a third edition shows them to have been so favorably received 
by our countrymen. Truth is mighty and will prevail ; and if you can fur- 
nish the means of arriving at it in this fair historical question, you are cer- 
tainly bound to do so. If I should not become a convert to your views, it 
would not be strange, considering that I have been so long accustomed to look 
only on one side of the matter ; and that your theory, moreover, if established, 
would convert what I have hitherto done into mere chateaux en Espagne. 

" With my sincere wishes for your restoration to health, and that you may 
be enabled to prosecute your interesting researches, 

I remain, dear sir, very truly yours, 

Wm. H. Prescott." 



*'His former work foreshadowed the discussion of the points wherein he 
differs from Mr. Prescott. The present work presents the author's matured 
thoughts upon this highly important subject, and also arrays the facts which 
tend to establish the Egyptian and Phoenician origin of the yestiges of civili- 
zation upon this continent." — iV. T. Com. Advertiser. 

The following letter was recently received by the author from Rousseau St. 
IIiLAiKE, Author of " The History of Spain," &c., and Professor of the 
Faculty of Letters in the University at Paris : — 

"236 Eue St. Jaques, Paris, 7 May, 1858. 
" Mr. R. A. Wilson. 

"Dear Sir: — You must have thought me very impolite, I have so long 
delayed to thank you for the gift so kindly made me in your curious and 
interesting work on Mexico. But, as I passed the winter at Nice for my 
health, it was not until my return that I received your book. I have not as 
yet been able, amid my numerous avocations, to read it throughout with the 
attention it merits. But as an old historian of America, as you may well 
believe, I feel an especial interest in the subject. I am hastening the perusal 
with a curiosity you can well understand, sharpened by the fabulous recitals 
of the Conquest. I am disposed to make large deductions from its story of 
exaggeration and fable ; for I willingly resign me to that sober truth which 
should be suificient for the historian. You might have seen, in my book, that 
I am not too partial to the illustrious bandit, whom the world calls Cortez. 
Like you, I abhor his cruelties and his bad faith, sheltered by religious hypo- 
crisy^ But these deductions made, I still admire, after having read your 
■yro:^, the boldness and grandeur of his enterprise, the coolness of its execu- 
tion, and the unrivalled talents displayed throughout the work. 

"I fear, too, and I avow it, that, rejecting this Catholic rival of Csesar and 
Hannibal, you will find your hands full — not indeed with me, but with my 
friend Mr. Prescott, who has looked on Cortez much in the same light that I 
have. I shall leave you to settle this difference with your learned fellow- 
citizen, content to use your work and to study it profoundly, until I have the 
honor, in a new edition, to re-write my Chapter on the Conquest of Mexico. 

" Nothing remains but that I should thank you, my dear sir, for so flatter- 
ing a mark of courtesy from one side of the Atlantic to the other, and to 
desire you to accept my sincere and cordial esteem. 
Your Obliged Confrere, 

Rousseau St. Hilaire." 



One of tlie leading Philadelphia press gives the following advance notice 
of it :— 

"James Challen & Son, of this city, will shortly issue a new work upon The 
Conquest of Mexico — the production of Judge Wilson, an American jurist and 
a popular author. . . . From present examination of a few advance sheets, 
we have no doubt that the work will be one of fine historical power in argu- 
ment and fact, as also an excellent volume in a literary point of view. The 
author differs materially with Prescott concerning the reliability of his sources 
of information, and the accuracy of many of the Monkish Chronicles, from 
which Prescott has derived some of the most important materials of his his- 
tory. What we at present see in contradiction to Prescott, is clearly and 
plausibly argued, and the book promises to be one of conscientious research 
and historical truth, revealing many important additional facts to previous 
history. The opinions and arguments of its learned author, in his difference 
with Prescott, are well endorsed by our present Secretary of State, the Hon. 
Lewis Cass, who first in the North American Eeview pointed out the incon- 
sistencies and fables of the Spanish historians of the Conquest, even before 
Prescott wrote his history, and who, from his experience of fifty years in 
investigations of Indian life, is as capable of reliable judgment upon the work 
as any man in the country. This endorsement, coming from so eminent a man, 
is sufficient to secure for it the respect and interest of every scholar in the 
country." 

Hon. Lewis Cass, who has devoted much attention f o this subject, in a letter 
to the author says : — 

"I was led, some years since, to investigate the truth of the early 
reports of the state of civilization among the Mexicans at the time of the 
Spanish Conquest. I became satisfied, to use your language, that the 
accounts were not merely exaggerations, but fabrications ; and I am glad to 
find that impression has been confirmed by the able and critical inquiry you 
have made. I shall not fail to peruse your work as soon as it comes out ; 
and I am sure I shall receive both pleasure and profit from it," &c. 

The work will be uniform in size and style with "Palestine, Past and Pre- 
sent," and "The City of the Great King." Prices, Cloth, $2.50. Sheep, 
$3.00. Half-calf, $3.50. 



The Chrislian Observer thus notices the advance slieets of the work : — 
"Judge Wilson proposes to do for Prescott, what Prescott, with the aid of 
the research of modern times, was enabled to do for Robertson. He believes 
that Prescott has been too ready to receive the fables and traditions of the 
Indians as history, and is sustained in this belief by Hon. Lewis Cass, the 
late Albert Gallatin, and others. The volume is doubtless the fruit of care- 
ful study, and will be published in the handsome style of Challen's pub- 
lications." 

From the Philadelphia News : — 

" The author eflfectually destroys several of the fine theories upon which 
I he history of Prescott and others are founded — proving pretty conclusively 
Ihat the Monkish chroniclers are not reliable — that the so-called Aztec Picture- 
Writings are but cunning fictions, &c., &c. While we would not utter a word 
in depreciation of a work which has afforded us so much pleasure in its 
perusal as 'Prescott's Mexico,' we have no hesitation to predict, from speci- 
mens which we have been privileged to see, including the Introductory Chap- 
ter, that, whether Judge Wilson succeeds or not in establishing the position 
which he assumes, his work will undoubtedly recommend itself to a large 
circle of readers on each side of the Atlantic, by its patient research, its large 
mass of curious and interesting facts, its ingenious arguments, and its lucid, 
graphic, and attractive style." 

" The author takes a difi'erent view from Prescott of the reliability of the 
Monkish Chronicles — doubting their accuracy. The opinions and arguments 
of Judge Wilson in this connexion are endorsed by Hon. Lewis Cass, who 
first, in the North American Revieio, pointed out the inconsistencies and fables 
of the Spanish historians of the Conquest, even before Prescott wrote his 
history, and who, from his experience of fifty years in investigations of Indian 
life, is as capable of reliable judgment upon the work as any man in the 
country." — N. Y. Evening Post. 

" From the advance sheets, we judge most favorably of the work." — Evening 
Journal. 

"The Chapter Preliminary creates a desire to peruse the entire work, and 
to satisfy ourselves that the author is correct in stating that, beyond a cavil, 
every vestige of ancient civilization on this continent is of Egyptian or Phoe- 
nician origin." — Phila. Inquirer. 

" Tho book is one of conscientious research and historical truth, revealing 
many important additional facts to previous history." — City Item. 




PALENQUE EMBLEM PHCENICIAN, 



PHCENICIAN COINS. 




"ASHTEROTH, GODDESS OF THE SIDONIANS 



A WEW 



HISTORY 



CONQUEST OF MEXICO. 



LAS CASAS' DENUNCIATIONS OF THE POPULAR HISTORIANS 
OF THAT WAR ARE FULLY YINDICATED. 



ROBERT ANDERSON WILSON, 

CO0NSEILOE AT LAW; AUTHOE OF "MEXICO ASB ITS RELIGION," ETC. 




PHILADELPHIA : 
JAMES CH ALLEN & SON, 

No. 25 South Sixth Street. 

J. B. LIPP7XC0TT & CO.— LINDSAY & BLAKTSTON NEW YORK: SIIKLDON 

AND COMPANY BOSTON: CROSBY. NICHOLS & CO. 

CTNCINNATI: RICKEY, MALLORY & CO CHICAGO: S. C. GRIGGS & CO. 

1859. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, 

BY ROBERT ANDERSON WILSON, 

la the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States in and for the Northern 

District of New York. 



iniiP.S it DUSEXBERT. STEUEOITPERS. 

P 12-30 
-W75 
1^ L.np^ 



j.-fj'"''' 



J 



LIPPINCOTI & CO., PRINTERS. 



TO 

COLONEL AND MKS. POWELL. 

THE ACTIVE PAKT, 

MT DEAR UNCLE, 

TOU TOOK IN THE LATE WAK AGAINST MEXICO, 

AND TOUK SUCCESSFUL EFFOETS, 

MY DEAR AUNT, 

FOR THE RESTORATION OF THE AUTHOR'S HEALTH, 

AFTER HE HAD BEEN GIVEN UP BT PHYSICIANS, 

ARE HIS APOLOGY FOR DEDICATING TO YOU, JOINTLY, 

gi Moxh 

IN ■WHICH YOU BOTH MUST TAKE 
A LIVELY INTEREST. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

Ake due to M. Rousseau de St. Hilaire, Professor in 
the Department of Letters of the University of France 
(Sorbonne), Author of the "History of Spain," &c., &c., 
both for the flattering notice he has taken of our prelimi- 
nary work on Mexico, and for the advantages derived 
from his writings. 

Likewise, to the Hon. Lewis Cass, who, in the Ame- 
rican Quarterly Review, even before Mr. Prescott wrote 
his histories, pointed out the gross inconsistencies and 
fables of the Spanish historians of the Conquest; they 
are due also for his notice of our work when only the 
preliminary chapter had been published — a notice most 
highly prized, as it came from one who had devoted over 
half a century to the investigation of Indian affairs. 

To Aaron Erickson, Esq., of Rochester, N. Y., we are 
also indebted for the advantages he has afforded us in the 

(yii) 



Vlll ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. 



prosecution of our arduous investigations ; and to Major 
Robert Wilson, now at Fort Riley, Kansas. 

Nor may the dead be forgotten ; — to that once distin- 
guished litterateur, as well as Finance Minister, the late 
Albert Gallatin, father of American Ethnology, we owe 
the heaviest obligation for his complete exposure of one 
great imposture, the pretended Aztec picture ivritmg. 
Many others also who have laid us under oblige.tions, by 
the successful investigation of isolated branches of the 
subject we have embodied into a system ; and to Divine 
Providence, above all, we are indebted for restoration to 
perfect health, and for ability to consummate so great a 
labor, after having been given over by physicians, as a 
victim of hereditary disease. 



INTRODUCTION. 



An inspection of the country itself, first shook our 
belief in those Spanish historic romances upon which Mr. 
Prescott has founded his magnificent tale of the Conquest 
of Mexico. 

In a transition state between faith and disbehef, our 
first work was written. But, even then it was suggested 
that Bernal Diaz — whose personal narrative was the 
foundation of every subsequent account — might yet prove 
a myth. That proof is now presented in so uncontro- 
vertible a shape, as to carry with it, to the region of 
romance, all former histories of the great event which 
they afiect to chronicle. 

The despatches of Cortez are our only written au- 
thority. These are found to consist of two distinct 
parts — one an accurate detail of adventures consistent 
throughout with the topograj)hy of the region in which 
they occurred, as shown by our section maps ; the other, 

(ix) 



X INTRODUCTION. 



a mass of foreign material, apparently borrowed from 
fables of the Moorish era, for effect in Spain, This 
element removed, both the hero and the war occupy 
a more commanding position than has hitherto been 
assigned them. 

To locate these aright has been our effort. In doing 
so, we have not only had to modify our previously- 
expressed opinions, but also to introduce an entirely new 
theory to account for the pre-existence of American civi- 
lization. The popular belief having been proved fabulous, 
we had to construct another, consistent with the newly- 
discovered facts of archaeology. 

This will be found in the fifth chapter, supported by 
copious notes; while in the sixth is a condensed sum- 
mary of Spanish- Arabian history; showing the mine from 
which historians have drawn the enchanting tales they 
have transferred to an American soil. 

Our pictures of Indian character, are not imported 
from abroad, or extracted from fashionable novels, but 
drawn with care from real life. These are the peculiar 
features of our work. 



EXPLANATORY NOTE. 



Engratings. — The only engravings custom authorizes in works of this 
character, are the portraits of its heroes. Mr. Prescott has introduced into 
his first volume a fine engraving of Cortez — from a copy-painting which has 
confessedly no known original ! That engraving represents the hero in a full 
set of steel armor, which he could not possibly have worn, at least in American 
Indian wars. In his second volume there is an engraving which purports to 
be a representation of Montezuma in full costume. It is unnecessary to add, 
that this, like the other, is undoubtedly a modern fabrication. 

Having no certain originals, and not wishing to impose upon my readers 
factitious portraits, I have been compelled to depart from established custom. 
As a compensation, I have produced a correct representation of the pyramidal 
mound of Cholula, as it actually appears to persons approaching it from Pue- 
bla. An attempt was made to introduce it into my preliminary work, but 
the engraver misconceived the sketch. 

There are a great many fancy sketches of Cliolula restored, and Castanada 
has made a correct view of its modern front, as published in the fourth volume 
of Lord Kingsborough, with a modern road built up its face, but mine is pro- 
bably the only correct view of its southern front. All other pictures, quoted 
or designed, are to prove some doctrine of the text ; excepting the frontis- 
piece, the Palenque Cross, which differs from the representation of it in 
Stephens, but is identical with the copy in the fourth volume of Lord Kings- 
borough (Plate L., part 3, No. 41). The difference consists in one retaining 
more of the allegorical surroundings than the other. 

Maps. — The maps of Spanish America, before the time of Humboldt, were 
little better than the weather prognostics in the almanac. That distinguished 
philosopher and traveller corrected them so far as his personal survey ex- 
tended, which must necessarily have been quite limited. Mr. Prescott has 
introduced the same maps, with some further amendments, but allowed sup- 
posititious portions to remain. I have inserted in this work the American 
army survey of the valley of Mexico, to demonstrate that lakes could not 
have existed there in the time of Montezuma. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PRELIMINARY Page 21 

CHAPTER I. 

THE PROBABLE ORIGIN OF THE AZTEC AND OTHER INDIANS. 

How historic material must be gathered, 31 — Causes of the extermination of 
the Indians, 33 — The law of the forest, 34 — The effect of task labor on the 
Indians, 35 — The absurdity of assigning to them a Jewish origin, 35 — The 
modification of races at the dispersion, 36 — The pretended Jewish origin of 
the Aztecs, 37 — The origin of the Aztecs, 38 — The pretended Aztec cove- 
nant with the Devil, 39 — Where did the monks get their information ? 40 — 
The arrival of the Aztecs in the valley of Mexico, 41 — The first settlement 
in that valley, 42 — The value of Indian traditions, 42 — Indio-monkish tra- 
ditions, 44 — The ethnologist in Indian dialects, 46 — The founding of Mexico 
and Tacuba, 48 — Tezcuco in its glory, 49 — Aezahualcoyotl, the Magnificent, 
49 — The adornments of his palace, 50 — The imperial children, 51 — The 
palace of Tezcocingo, 52 — He plays the part of David in the tragedy of 
Uriah, 52 — Aezahualcoyotl a religious reformer, 53 — Aezahualcoyotl a 
poet, 54 — A translation from his poems, 55 — The fabulous city of Tezcuco, 
56 — The genius of Fernando de Alva, 57 — The value of De Alva, as wit- 
ness, 60 — Tezcuco without the fable, 60 — The federative system of the 
Aztecs and other Indians, 61 — Their law of descent, 62 — Indian law of 
succession, 62 — Their tribal divisions, 63 — Effect of this law on marriage 
and inheritance, 64 — Indian agrarian laws, 64 — Aztec laws of the common 
type, 66 — The existence of an Indian monarchy doubtful, 67 — Lord Kings- 
borough, 68 — The author's visit to Tezcuco, 70. 

(xiii) 



XIV CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER II. 

SPANISH HISTORIANS AND SPANISH PICTURE WRITINGS. 

Historians of the conquest, 76 — Author's facilities for conducting an investi- 
gation, 77 — The result of the inquiry, 78 — Criticism necessary, 78 — The 
Spanish histories hut parodies on the book of Joshua, 79 — Their histories 
divested of Moorish elements, 80 — The object of Cortez' letters, 80 — The 
effect of the emperor's favor on evidence, 81 — Romance and history inter- 
mingled, 82 — A Moorish character given to the Indians, 84 — The influence 
of the holy office on history, 86 — MS. histories, 87 — Indio-Spanish tradi- 
tional history, 88 — Burning of Aztec picture records fabulous, 90 — Picture 
writings Spanish, not Aztec, 90 — The discrepancies among historians, 92 — 
The difficulty of vrriting a history of the conquest, 93 — The verisimilitude 
of Spanish authors, 94 — Bernal Diaz de Castillo, 95 — Modern historians 
of the conquest, 97 — Boturnini, 98 — A specimen of his picture writings, 
101 — Veytia, 102 — Clavigero, 103 — Historians at Mexico, 104 — Alaman, 
104— Bustamente and Lerdo de Tajede, 104— Mr. Wm. H. Prescott, 104— 
Robertson's History of America, 106 — Mr. L. H. Morgan's " League of the 
Iroquois" 106 — M. Dupaix, 107 — Alexander Von Humboldt, 107. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE COUNTRY OF THE AZTECS — THE TABLE-LAND OF AMERICA. 

Its mountain scenery, 109 — A country of silver, 112 — An isolated country, 
112 — A tornado, 113 — The way to the interior, 115 — A tropical shore, 116 
— A country in the clouds, 116 — Crossing the plateau, 117 — The vegetation 
and climate changing, 118 — A view of all the vegetable kingdoms, 119 — 
The century plant, 120— Morning twilight, 121— The desert, 122— The 
country of the table-land, 123 — The Aztec foreign policy, 123 — The Aztec 
dominion to the Pacific, 124 — The south-east Aztec provinces, 125 — Aca- 
pulco, 125. 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE GEOLOGY OF A COUNTRY PRODUCING THE PRECIOUS METALS. 

The geology in Mexican history, 129 — Civilized and savage gold diggers, 
129 — Civilized digger a geologist, 130 — The gold diggers' geology, 131 — 
His speculation of floods, 132 — Intellectual superiority of the Anglo-Saxon, 



CONTENTS. XV 



133 — The silver miner, 133 — The chemistry of mining, 134 — The gold 
digger avoids the primitive, 134 — The silver miner seeks for ores in the 
primitive rocks, 135 — Why this chapter necessary, 136 — The silver mines, 
137— The Eeal del Monte mines, 137. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE EXTINCT EMPIRE OF CENTRAL AMERICA IDENTIFIED AS PHCE- 
NICIAN IN ITS ARCHITECTURE, ART, AND RELIGION. 

The antiquity of Central American ruins, 145 — Egyptian analogies, 146 — ■ 
Ancient Americans not Egyptian in manner of worship, 146 — Obstacles to 
Egyptian migration, 147 — The era of Egyptian prosperity, 148 — Philistia 
and Phoenicia, 149 — Tarshish and its commerce, 150 — The religion of Tar- 
shish, 152 — The Latin cross at Nineveh and Tyre, 152 — The ancient mag- 
netic cross, 153 — The cross the emblem of Ashteroth, 154 — Tyre the Paris 
of antiquity, 155 — Causes of decline of ancient nations, 156 — Sacrificing 
children to Molech or Saturn, 157 — The Phoenician Madonna at Palenque, 
158 — Offering children to the cross at Palenque, 158 — The copper medallion 
alleged to have been found there, 160 — The tortoise the emblem of a Phoe- 
nician colony, 161 — The river \rall of Copan, 161— The alleged Phoenician 
MS., 161 — Recapitulation of Phoenician analogies, 162 — The bronze tools 
and weapons of antiquity, 163 — Steel by its cheapness supplanting bronze, 
164 — A retrospect of antiquity, 165 — The dense population of ancient Cen- 
tral America, 166 — The result of commerce, 166 — Ancient routes of this 
commerce, 167 — Probable cause of its extinction, 167 — The oriental origin 
of Greek civilization, 169 — Greek ignorance of antiquity, 170 — The suc- 
ceeding era, 170 — Decay of races, 171 — Each continent has a common hive, 
172 — Our cause proved by unwilling witnesses, 172 — Why the fabled visit 
of the Apostle invented, 173 — The proofs necessary, 173 — Priority of sailing 
vessels to galleys, 174 — The proper judges of evidence, 176 — The incon- 
gruity of races, 177. 



CHAPTER VI. 

SPAIN FROM THE TRADITIONAL ERA TO THE RISE OF CASTILE. 

The beginning of the *' historie of Spaine," 210 — " Osiris Denis, King of 
Egypt," succors Tartesse (Cadiz), 213 — " Hercules the Great, son of Osiris," 
slays the Gerions, and again relieves Cadiz, 214 — " Osiris Denis" identified 
as Rameses IV., 216 — Canonization of Hercules, 219 — Spain under the suc- 
cessors of Hercules, 220 — Why Neptune was first deified by the Libyans, 



XVI CONTENTS. 



221 — Tyrians migrate to Tartesse, 222— The Grecian Hercules at Tartesse 
223 — An unpoetical picture of him, 224 — The true character of Hercules, 
224 — An immense yield of the silver mines, 226 — The traditional account 
of their discovery, 228 — Rise of the Carthaginian commonwealth, 230 — 
Carthaginians invited to Spain, 231 — Spain under the Carthaginians and 
Romans, 231 — Reasons for inviting the Moslems into Spain, 232 — Our in- 
debtedness to the Spanish Arabs, 234 — Cause of the decline of Arianism, 
236 — Civilization of the Saracens peculiar, 237 — The time and place of Ma- 
homet's birth, 238 — Cause of the success of the Saracens, 239 — Tarik in- 
vades Spain, 240 — Gothic preparations for defence, 241 — Traditions asso- 
ciated vrith the field of Gaudalete, 241 — The moral power of Tarik, 242 — 
How the " faithful" regarded the battle, 244 — The Christians imitate the 
Egyptians on the same field, 244— The first day of the battle, 246— The 
battle of Gaudalete continued, 247 — The religious results of the victory, 248 
— The genius of the Arabs for the arts of peace, 248 — The Caliphate of Cor- 
dova, 250 — Its rapid growth and prosperity, 251 — Progress of learning 
among the Arabs, 254 — They disseminate it through Europe, 257 — The 
effect of this civilization, 258 — The fabulous histories of Mexico drawn from 
Cordova, 258 — Our indebtedness to the Arabs, 261 — Compelled to follow 
Spanish historians, 262. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE OEIGIN OF THE CASTILIAN EACE ; THEIR PROGRESS TO THE 
DISCOVERY OF AMERICA; AND THE EVENTS THAT IMMEDI- 
ATELY FOLLOWED. 

Pelagius and Zimines found the kingdoms of Leon and Navarre, 265 — Bene- 
fits resulting from their revolt, 266 — Cause of Moslem decay, 267 — Decline 
of the Castiiian race, 269 — Christopher Columbus, 271 — His character, 271 
— Quintanello introduces Columbus, 273 — A vindication of King Ferdinand, 
273 — Disappointments benefit Columbus, 275 — The motives that sustained 
him, 276 — The Atlantic crossed, 277 — The Indian population, when disco- 
vered, 278 — The enslavement of the Indians, 279 — The effect of slavery on 
the Indians, 281 — Columbus returns successful, 282 — Traces of civilization 
first discovered, 283 — The builders of these temples or chapels on truncated 
pyramids, 285 — Origin of the idea of Indian civilization, 287 — The apology 
for returning, 288 — The effect of this last discovery, 290 — Discrepancies in 
narratives, 291— The allegation of Indian idolatry, 292 — The island of Cozu- 
mel, 292 — Ruins on Cozumel Island, 294 — A temple found in a deserted 
district, 296 — The extinct race of Yucatan, 297 — Barter for gold and ob- 
serve picture writing, 299 — Human sacrifice, 301 — The end of Grijalva's 
expedition, 302 — Sociedad Mexicana, 303 — Don Juan Antonio Llorente, 303. 



CONTENTS. XVU 



CHAPTER YIII. 

CORTEZ INYADES MEXICO. 

Hernando Cortez, 304 — A miracle, 305 — Cortez' life in the West Indies, 306 
— Cortez appointed to command an expedition, 309 — Cortez sails from the 
Havana, 309— Robertson resuscitates Spanish myths, 310— Bernal Diaz, 313 
— Cortez reforming the Indian religion, 314 — Antique statues overturned 
by Cortez, 317 — A muster of forces, 317 — Adieu to ancient ruins, 318 — The 
battles at Tobasco, 319 — Second and third battle, 320 — A battle in which 
San Jago appears on a vrhite horse, 322 — How Cortez converts twenty Indian 
females, 323 — Landing at Vera Cruz, 324 — Dona Marina, 326. 



CHAPTER IX. 

CORTEZ SETTLES AFFAIRS AT VERA CRUZ, AND MARCHES TO 

TLASCALA. 

The character of Montezuma, 328 — His administration and policy, 329 — Tra- 
dition of the coming pale-faces, 330 — The Indian presents and their quality, 
331 — The religion propagated by the Spaniards, 333 — Indian idolatry and 
cannibalism explained, 334 — The real and apocryphal Indian presents, 336 
— The picture writings and the soldier's casque, 337 — How Cortez was 
appointed Captain-General, 338 — Cortez moves to Sempoalla, and his mis- 
sionary zeal, 339 — The fleet moved to oldest Vera Cruz, 341 — Expedition 
to Tzinpantzinco, 342 — Cortez acts the diplomatist, 342 — Cortez and others 
obtain each a squaw, 342 — Cortez exhibits his zeal for religion, 344 — Cor- 
tez sends agents and presents to Charles V., 346 — The council of the 
Indias on Cortez, 347 — The emperor favors Cortez, 348 — An attempted 
piracy, 349 — Did Cortez or a tornado strand his vessels, 349 — The march 
to the interior, 351 — The scenery peculiarly American, 352 — Its extraordi- 
nary beauty, 353 — The rapidity of Cortez' marches, 354 — The real merit 
of Cortez, 355 — Cortez crossing the high mountain, 355 — March across the 
barren land, 358 — The country through which Cortez marches, 359. 



CHAPTER X. 

OPERATIONS IN TLASCALA. 

The Tlascala of Cortez, 360 — Slascala according to Diaz, 361 — Tlascala ac- 
cording to the historians, 362 —The impossibilities in Cortez' statements, 
362 — An unfortunate remark of Diaz, 364 — The facts in relation to Tlascala, 
2 



XVlll CONTENTS. 



365 — The real advantage of the TIascalan alliance, 366 — Religious tolera- 
tion at Tlascala, 367— The Tlascalans and their government, 368— The 
campaign of Tlascala, 368 — First battle vrith the Tlascalans, 369 — Another 
great battle, 370 — The success of the TIascalan war, 370 — The consumma- 
tion of the TIascalan alliance, 371 — Cortez reforming the Indian religion, 
372— Cholula, 376— Was Quetzalcoatl the Apostle Thomas? 378— The city 
of Cholula, 379 — Its political state and government, 380 — The simple truth 
about Cholula, 380 — The Cholula massacre, 382 — An ascent of the volcano, 
384 — Preparations for a march to Mexico, 386 — Cortez enters the valley of 
Mexico, 386— Cholula, 388. 



CHAPTER XI. 

CORTEZ ENTERS MEXICO, SEIZES MONTEZUMA, AND OCCUPIES 
THAT CITY TILL DRIVEN OUT BY AN INSURRECTION. 

Advantage of having the person of Montezuma, 391 — A probable plot and 
counterplot, 392 — The Spaniards and Indians both doubtless designing 
treachery, 394 — Fabulous narratives of the enii'S and appearance of Mexico, 
395 — The effect of historic fables on the modern city, 397 — Mexico as an 
Indian capital, 397 — Interviews with Montezuma before his arrest, 398 — 
The capture of Montezuma, 400 — Advantage gained by this treacherous 
act, 401 — Cortez prepares to go against Narvaez, 403 — The battle with Nar- 
vaez, 404 — Commencement of hostilities in the capital, 405 — The contest 
around the Spanish quarters, 406— Capture of the great pyramid, 408 — 
Other events before the night retreat, 408 — Unsatisfactory cause assigned 
for retreat, 409— Cortez' night retreat from Mexico, 410 — Recapitulation 
of the night retreat, 413— The fugitives at the " Hill oi Remedios," 414— Re- 
treat continued, 415 — The second night of the retreat, 415 — The retreat to 
Otumba, 417— The great battle of Otumba, 418— The battle concluded, 419 
— Cortez reaches Tlascala, 420 — The author visits Tacuba, 420. 



CHAPTER XII. 

BUILDING OF THE BRIGANTINES, CAMPAIGN OF TEPEACA, AND 
RETURN TO THE MEXICAN YALLEY. 

Cortez begins a war of extermination, 426 — He determines to build a flotilla, 
427 — Cortez enslaves the Indians of Tepeaca, 429 — Subjugation of Tepeaca 
and founding a colony, 430 — The branding of Indian women with a hot 
iron, 430 — The Spaniards disgust the Indians with Christianity, 431 — 
Gomora's fables on this campaign, 432 — Cortez secures the passes lo 



CONTENTS. xix 



Mexico, 433 — The policy of Cortez, 433 — The lagunas, and size of the 
brigantines, 434 — The diflBculties encountered in building this flotilla, 435 
— A wonderful success, but marred by fables, 436 — How Cortez obtained 
supplies and friends, 436 — How he circumvented Las Casas, 437 — How 
Cortez justified his enslavement of Indians, 438 — The manner of transport- 
ing the flotilla, 439 — The fabulous number of Indians engaged, 439 — Why 
Tezcuco was selected as the flotilla station, 440— A muster of forces, 442 — 
The passage of the mountain, 444 — Cortez' entry into Tezcuco, 445 — Cortez 
fortifies his quarters, 445 — Cortez entrapped at Iztapalapa — his night 
retreat, 446 — An explanation of the Iztapalapa affair, 447 — Death of the 
Emperor Cuetravacin, 449 — How the statement of Cortez becomes possible, 
450 — Cortez' account of it, 450 — Don Fernando, Lord of Tezcuco, 451 — A 
topographical survey of the Mexican valley, 452 — The Mexican causeways, 
452 — The maps used in this chapter, 452 — Survey of Lieut. H. L. Smith, 
U.S. A., 460. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE SIEGE OF MEXICO. 

The youthful Emperor Guatamozin, 461 — Effect of the appearance of the 
"brigantines," 462 — Guatamozin's line of defence — his heroism, 463 — 
Transporting the " brigantines" to Tezcuco, 464 — Cortez makes a recon- 
noissance in force, 465 — Incidents of the march, 466 — More topographical 
blunders of Diaz, 467 — Sandoval's expedition to Chalco, 468 — More woman- 
branding — arrival of a Papal bull, 469 — Their sins pardoned by virtue of 
the bull, 469 — Cortez' expedition south of the lagunas, 470 — Cortez en- 
gages the mountain tribes, 472 — The beauty of the gardens of Guastipeque, 
472 — The capture of Cuernavaca, 473 — Capture of Xochimilco, 474 — The 
second day at Xochimilco, 475 — The second reconnoissance to Tacuba, 476 
— The character of this reconnoissance, 476 — The canal built by Cortez, 477 
— A fabulous depth given to his canal, 478 — Adventurers attracted by the 
first despatch, 478 — A muster and division offerees for the siege, 479 — The 
land forces placed in position, 480 — By means of his brigantines Cortez 
captures the Pinon, 480 — The first battle on the water, 482 — The first 
week of the siege, 483 — A complete investment effected, 484 — Its results, 
485 — The Chin'ampas, improperly called Floating Gardens, 485. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

CAPTURE AND DESTRUCTION OF MEXICO. 

Commencement of the siege, 488 — The fabulous numbers of allies reduced, 
489 — Cortez retreats and abandons a cannon, 490 — The advantage Cortez 



XX CONTENTS. 



derived from his cavalry, 490 — The result of two days of fighting, 491 — , 
Cortez divides his flotilla, 491 — Cortez makes another attack, 493 — Cortez 
burns the fabulous palaces of Mexico, 493 — Hunger, thirst, and the small- 
pox hasten the event, 494 — New fables and further reductions by Diaz, 494 
— Submission of the neighboring hamlets — defeat of Alvarado, 495 — Re- 
markable fortitude of the Mexicans, 496 — The Mexican trenches — how 
made, 496 — Cortez suffers a serious repulse, 497 — Cortez rescued from the 
enemy, 498 — A fearful retribution, 498 — Indian peculiarities in war, 499 — 
Secondary expeditions during the interval, 500 — Cortez resolves to demolish 
the city, 500 — Cortez plans a successful ambuscade, 500 — Cortez providing 
cannibals with their food, 501 — Cortez in possession of seven-eighths of the 
city, 502 — The famine in the city, 502 — The miserable condition of the citi- 
zens, 503 — Guatamozln prefers death to a surrender, 503 — The capture of 
Guatamozin, 504 — The torturing of the prisoners, 505 — The motive not 
understood in Spain, 507 — Result of Cortez' policy, 508 — Cortez governed 
by policy, 508 — Exaggerations reduced to reality, 509 — Cortez one of the 
great men of his age, 510 — Cortez eclipsed by Pizarro, 511 — The youthful 
hero Guatamozin, 512. 



CHAPTER XY. 

A SUMMARY. 

Phoenician vestiges in the British Islands, 513 — Probabilities of their crossing 
the Atlantic, 514 — Argument from analogy, 514 — Traditional knowledge 
of American colonies, 515 — ^Extinction of an exotic race, 516 — Decay of 
modern exotics, 517 — Our disappointment with others, 518 — Our faith 
shaken at Tlascala, 519 — Extinguished at Cholula, 520 — The argument 
from the brigantines, 521 — Time occupied in the siege explained, 521 — 
Mexican Empire doubtless a confederacy, 522 — Difference of this from our 
own Indian wars, 522— What the Mexicans really were, 523 — The conclu- 
sion, 524. 



CHAPTER PRELIMINARY. 

In this work the standard Spanish authorities have 
been followed as long as they followed the truth. When- 
ever they departed from the path of physical possibili- 
ties we have also departed from them, and thenceforward 
groped our way, as best we could, through a crude mass 
of other materials. " Weight of authority" has not 
deterred us from rejecting whatever was manifestly 
untrue, nor have we relied on the sanction of a Superior 
or an Inquisitor to justify a false assertion. 

The picture writings copied into the monster volumes of 
Lord Kingsborough, we have denounced as Spanish fabri- 
cations ; as they, independent of containing internal evi- 
dence of imposture, do not purport to be originals. All 
the evidence we have in relation to them, is the state- 
ment of their ci-devant transcriber, the monk Pietro. He 
tells us they were copied from Indian records, continued 
for a period of thirty-two years subsequent to the con- 
quest. On this unstable foundation the whole fabric rests. 
If originals ever existed, and of Indian workmanship, to 
so late a date, they must have been the production of 
Romanized, and not of pagan Aztecs. 

In the second generation succeeding the conquest the 

(21) 



22 CHAPTER PRELIMINARY. 



increased product of silver excited a general interest 
throughout Europe in the affairs of Mexico and Peru, and 
then the Aztec picture writings appeared ; but, the foreign 
market supplied, they disappeared, too, as mysteriously, 
under the management of Bishop Zumarraga, as the 
Virgin Mary herself, after she had furnished him with 
her miraculous portrait. It was then the ghost of Bernal 
Diaz was evoked to write a new narrative of the conquest ; 
one that should enlarge the general scope of that adven- 
ture, while it cut away some of the more monstrous 
fictions of its leader. 

Gomora, the chaplain of Cortez, is the leading historian 
of the conquest. Though his work is but a continuous 
laudation of his patron, the elegance of its style, and the 
beauty of its diction, supply the place of truth. He is 
but the De Foe of history, Cortez is his Crusoe, and the 
lagunas of Mexico the seas that witnessed his hero's 
adventures. Bernal Diaz* says of this writer, " we must 
write one thousand when Gomora says eighty thousand !" 
Denounced and thoroughly exposed both by him and Las 
Casas, yet is he still habitually quoted as an historic 
authority. 

A number of monkish historians appeared also about 
the time of Diaz. Their productions abound in state- 
ments absurd, contradictory, and impossible. All have 
but one object, — the glory of the Virgin and the church, 
— and all claim some unproduced picture writing for 



* We mean the book that bears the taining a full and true account of the 
title, " The Memoirs of Bernal Diaz discovery and conquest of Mexico 
del Castillo written by himself, con- and New Spain." 



CHAPTER PRELIMINARY. 23 



their authority. The better to advance this darling 
object, works in relation to the new world were, by law, 
finally restricted, to persons in the priestly office. The 
fact, then, that these authors composed under the eye 
of a Superior, and could not publish without a license 
from seven other independent censors, utterly forbids 
their citation as authority. Not only are there mistakes 
among these chroniclers, in matters of topography — 
they were to be expected — and fables which the 
church supported — and the church desired — these were 
to be expected also ; beyond these lies another cause of 
error; the monstrous exaggeration which pervades the 
entire fabric of every Spanish account of the conquest. 
Thread by thread, warp and woof, has received that dye, 
and now, to present the subject in the simplicity of un- 
adorned truth, appears almost impossible. 

Some fifty years later than Diaz a new historian arose, 
Fernando de Alva, the quadroon. By the magic of his 
pen alone, his native mud-built village of Tezcuco, became 
the metropolis of an extinct empire, surpassing that of 
Bagdad or the Great Mogul. This empire in the clouds 
depends too for its history on other unproved picture lorit- 
ings ; records, it is averred, that had escaped the alleged 
burning of Bishop Zumarraga. 

A hundred and fifty years more, and we reach a new 
batch of authors, who, in Italy and Spain, repeat the 
fables of their predecessors, with various modifications — 
Boturnini, Clavigero, Veytia, &c., standard authorities 
among our own writers. In an unguarded moment these 
chroniclers ventured to produce specimens of Indian pic- 



24. CHAPTER PRELIMINARY. 



iure writing. To prove the Aztec theory of the flood, 
an Italian, in gown and curled wig, paddles a little boat 
in one, while other similar figures are engaged upon the 
sacrifice of a female victim, whose Italian head-dress, is 
about the only means of distinguishing her from a sheep. 
Three instances of record-burning are usually cited in 
connexion with the Spanish histories of Mexico. The 
first is that of the Toltec records, destroyed by the Aztec 
emperor, Ytzcoult. The second, the Votan MS. of the 
Phoenician era, committed to the flames by a Bishop of 
Chiapa after a copy had been taken ! This may be found 
in the Rev. Dr. Hawks's translation of Rihero. The 
last apocryphal auto is that of the Aztec and Tezcucan 
picture writings by Zumarraga. 

The tales of human sacrifice rest on as unreliable wit- 
nesses as those of the pictu7'e writing. Spaniards, compos- 
ing under constraint, necessarily repeated all the monstrous 
statements of Cortez. But Robertson not only reproduces 
them, in his history of America, — ^he goes out of his way 
to charge the Iroquois of New York with cminibalism I 
The accusation has as much foundation as that of human 
sacrifice. The origin of that fiction is due to the first' dis- 
coverers of Yucatan. These adventurers found, the 
Indians' huts and the ruins of Phoenician temples toge- 
ther, near the fresh water, along the whole coast. Upon 
the walls of those temples were, as at Palenque, repre- 
sentations of priests in the act of ofiering infants to the 
mask of Saturn {Molocli), and to the cross of Askteroth 
(the Latin cross), and also the marks of blood-red hands. 
In their ignorance, they supposed the existing race 



CHAPTER PRELIMINARY. 25 



also the builders of the temples, and when the story tra- 
velled back to Cuba from Europe, the Indians were trans- 
formed into a civilized people, practising human sacrifice. 
Cortez found this idea rife before he sailed, and carried 
it with him from Yucatan to Mexico, where, though no 
such ruins existed, it supplied a specious justification for 
his crimes. 

No claim is made to originality in this exposure of 
monkish fables, revamped for American history. A 
writer iu the North American Review for October, 1840, 
understood to be that veteran in literature and Indian 
affairs, Hon. Lewis Cass, U. S. Secretary of State, had 
already taken the initiative in that inquiry ; and the first 
volume of the transactions of the American Ethnological 
Society bears witness to the labors of another pioneer, 
once also a distinguished cabinet minister, the late Mr. 
Albert Gallatin. Nor can we indeed, when assigning to 
the Phoenicians every vestige of antique civilization on 
this continent, be deemed the asserter of any new truth ; 
that was the popular Spanish doctrine to the days of 
Dupaix and Stephens, and in reafiirming it we have 
drawn our strongest arguments from those very explorers. 

Monkish authors claim the Madonna, the infant and the 
cross, portrayed on the ruins of Yucatan, as their own. 
But this admitted, it does not prove the. visit of the 
Apostle Thomas, as they insist, but rather, if anything, 
the identity of the Romish with the Phoenician adoration 
of the Queen of Heaven. We identify them only as 
Phoenician. 

When any chapter treats of a particular division of 



26 CHAPTER PRELIMINARY. 



country, there is usually appended to it the author's per- 
sonal survey of that section, besides the general description 
contained in the third chapter. The supplemental notes 
comprise also extended notices of the chief historians of 
the conquest. 

Both Robertson and the American historian Prescott, 
relying upon the historical romances they quote, have 
entirely mistaken the character and genius of Cortez. It 
was not in great battles, but in a rapid succession of skir- 
mishes, that he distinguished himself, and won, not the 
character of a Roman propagandist, but that of an adroit 
leader in Indian War. Mr. Prescott's non-acquaintance 
with Indian character is much to be regretted, otherwise 
he would have perceived the un-Indian dress which the 
Aztecs wear in the works of Spanish historians. In this 
work their natural character is restored, and their resist- 
ance shown to have been not one of j)itched battles, as 
he has presented it, but of plots and counterplots, night 
assaults, surprises, and ambuscades; the true Indian 
system of hostility. 

On newly discovered evidence Mr. Prescott has very 
properly produced a corrected edition of Robertson's his- 
tory. In like manner, on newly discovered evidence, and 
on a remarshalling of former witnesses, the statements of 
both, relating to America, are not only corrected, but the 
history of the empire of Montezuma and of the Peruvians 
entirely rewritten. 

On mature reflection we have also been led to modify 
our first published impressions, and, giving greater weight 



CHAPTER PRELIMINARY. 27 



to Cortez, to regard all subsequent narratives either as 
literary forgeries or as resting on the fictions of others. 

The reader will doubtless excuse the mass of notes in 
the fifth chapter. They were necessary to establish 
beyond a cavil the Egyptian and Phoenician origin of 
every vestige of civilization found on this continent. . 



MEXICAN HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES. 

The preliminary chapter of Mr. Wilson's forthcoming -work upon Mexico, 
which was published in this journal on the 26th instant, has turned our atten- 
tion to an article in the North American Review for October, 1840, under- 
stood to have been written by General Cass, and which corroborates the views 
of Mr. Wilson respecting Mexican antiquities. We give a few extracts from 
the Review. — National Intelligencer. 

To the American scholar and archaeologist we know no subject more inte- 
resting than the study of the true condition of the Mexican people when they 
fell under the Spanish yoke. And indeed it is an historical problem which 
well merits the favorable attention of the most general reader. There are 
certainly many considerations which throw doubts upon the vivid representa- 
tions that the conquerors and their immediate successors have left us respect- 
ing the government, state of society, religion, population, and progress of 
the arts among the several nations, or perhaps, more properly speaking, 
tribes, which inhabited the extensive regions, stretching from the Gulf of 
Mexico to the Pacific, north of the Isthmus of Darien ; while, on the other 
hand, it cannot be doubted that they were in advance of the more erratic 
hordes beyond them, and reaching to the St. Lawrence and the great Lakes, 
in some of the elements of human improvement. -x- * * * 

Every one at all conversant with the Spanish conquest of Mexico, must 
have read with surprise the accounts of the immense armies which opposed 
the progress of the invaders, and of those also who ultimately joined them and 
facilitated their own subjugation, while they thought only of crushing a rival, 
an enemy, or an oppressor. Cortez, in his second letter to the emperor, dated 
October 30, 1520, estimates the number opposed to him in his first battle at 
6000, in his second at 100,000, and in his third at 150,000. His friend and 
chaplain, Gomara, adopts the same estimate, with this difi'erence, however, 
that he reduces the enemy in the second battle from 100,000 to 80,000. But 



28 CHAPTER PRELIMINARY. 



Bernal Diaz del Castillo, who appears to have been a frank and hardy soldier, 
describing, in his old age, what he had seen and done in his youth, and who 
participated in all the campaigns of Cortez in New Spain, makes a wonder- 
ful deduction from the statements of the general in the force they encoun- 
tered upon these occasions. He says that the Indians were 3000 in the first 
battle, 6000 in the second, and 50,000 in the third. And he makes a remark 
upon this subject which furnishes a thread to guide the explorer in his ex- 
amination of this labyrinth, and which does honor to the judgment as well 
as to the principles of the veteran. He says : " When Gomara, on some occa- 
sions, relates that there were so many thousand Indians or auxiliaries, and 
on others that there were so many thousand houses in this or that town, no 
regard is to be paid to his enumeration, as he has no authority for it, the 
numbers not being in reality the fifth of what he relates." If further proof 
were wanting of this propensity to overrate and overstate, it may be found in 
the assertion of Solis that there were two thousand temples in the capital of 
Mexico when it fell into the possession of the Spaniards — a number which 
would have startled an Egyptian in the palmy days of priesthood in that 
temple-loving country, and which could find no parallel in the long extent 
from On to Thebes. And to render, if possible, this gross exaggeration still 
less excusable, Gomara, who entered Mexico with the conqueror, says that 
there were but eight places destined to the worship of idols in the city. 
* * * Even Clavigero, the panegyrist rather than the historian of 
Mexico, in his strictures upon the state of architecture among the original 
Mexicans, specifies only one pile of buildings as among existing ruins ; and, 
while he speaks of it as worthy of admiration, he says that neither this nor 
any other relic of Mexican work can " be compared with the famous aque- 
duct of Chempoallan." But unluckily this latter structure was built after 
the conquest, and planned and directed by a Franciscan missionary; while 
the former happened to be no Mexican ruins at all, being those at Mitla, 
which belong to an entirely difi"erent race. •» * -x- * * * 
No useful induction, proving the existence of an early state of civilization, 
can be drawn from the Mexican tumuli or from those found in the United 
States. This kind of primitive monument was constructed, as we have seen, 
in the earliest ages of the world, and by nations widely separated from each 
other, and they are, no doubt, the oldest relics of human labor which have 
come down to us. They are described by authors as existing in France, Ire- 
land, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Greece, Asia Minor, and several other coun- 
tries. Their double office of tombs and monuments is indicated by the Latin 
name tumulus given to these constructions, which signifies equally a toiab 



CHAPTER PRELIMINARY. 29 



and an elevation. One of the earliest works of this description -which his- 
tory mentions is the tumulus erected by Semiramis to the memory of her 
husband on the banks of the Tigris. Every reader, familiar with Homer, 
will recollect the funeral ceremonies of Patroclus and of Hector, and the 
mounds which were raised to their memory, and which contained their ashes. 

We have already adverted to the fact that all the Mexican constructions 
existing at the period of the conquest have long ago disappeared, with the 
exception of two or three ruins, which teach us nothing respecting the state 
of the arts at that period. Two centuries after the Spanish conquest, and 
perhaps a small part of this period, were found sufficient to sweep away all 
the works of the aboriginal inhabitants of the country. If the temples, and 
houses, and fortifications, and walls of stone described by the early historians 
had corresponded at all to the magnificent accounts given by them, such a 
destruction would have been impossible. A much longer time would be 
necessary in any country to cause the disappearance of even wooden structures. 
We shall not stop to extend this view, for we consider it wholly unnecessary. 
We shall merely present a few statements from early authors to show the 
exaggeration to which they were addicted. * * * * * «• 

But Cortez himself is the great panegyrist of Mexican architecture, for he 
says, in his first letter to the Emperor Charles the Fifth, that Montezuma 
" had, besides those in Mexico, other such admirable houses for his habitation 
that I do not believe I shall ever be able to express their excellence and 
grandeur ; therefore I sliall only say there are no equals to them in Spain." 
Alas ! for the remains of Roman and Moorish art, which constitute the pride 
of the Lusitanian peninsula. " Woe is me, Alhama !" 

The best commentary upon this text is that Cortez himself, not finding p 
house fit for his habitation in all Mexico, was compelled to construct one. 

Having much more faith in the ordinary operation of natural causes than 
in the judgment and accuracy of men who were surrounded by circumstances 
of a nature to excite and delude them, it is much easier for us to believe that 
there is gross exaggeration in these descriptions than that such constructions 
were reared by Mexican savages, and that they have all disappeared with- 
out leaving a vestige of their existence, and that they were built with stone 
axes, and by a people without domestic animals, and without any conven- 
tional representative of value, where the seller of maize must have exchanged 
his produce for a natte, and the workman, after his day's labor, picked up the 
articles as he could, we do not see how. 



CHAPTER PRELIMINARY. 



But there is no end to the exaggerations of Clavigero. In truth his rela- 
tion is unworthy of credit where it is in opposition to the moral circumstances 
of the Mexicans, as these can be deduced from the confused accounts which 
are in our possession. A proof of his credulity, or of something worse, is 
found in his seventh l)Ook, where he describes what he calls the Mexican 
" granaries." The reader would suppose, from the terms with which the 
description commences, that some important structure was about to be intro- 
duced, and it is only towards the conclusion that he finds these magnificent 
depositories are nothing but plain corn-cribs, such as every Indian and every 
frontier settler makes for himself in a day to contain his corn. They are 
formed, says Clavigero, "by placing round and equal trunks of the ojametl 
in a square one upon the other," &c. 

And what furnishes a singular contrast to the accounts given of the large 
stone buildings which have long since disappeared is the statement of Cla- 
vigero, " that there are yet existing some of these granaries so very ancient 
that they appear to have been built before the conquest." * * * 

After the foregoing chapter and extract were printed in the National 
Intelligencer, the author submitted his argument to the honorable reviewer 
above named, who gave it the following indorsement, which we publish by 
permission : — 

■Washington, May 12, 1858. 
Dear Sir: — I thank you for your letter, and for the just sentiments it 
expresses. I was led, some years since, to investigate the truth of the early 
reports of the state of civilization among the Mexicans, at the time of the 
Spanish Conquest. I became satisfied, to use your language, that the 
accounts were not merel}^ exaggerations, but fabrications ; and I am glad to 
find that impression has been confirmed by the able and critical inquiry you 
have made. I shall not fail to peruse your work as soon as it comes out ; 
and I am sure I shall receive both profit and pleasure from it. 
I am, dear sir, 

Truly yours, 

LEWIS CASS. 
R. A. Wilson, Esq., 



We conclude this note by adding, Mr. Prescott was a contributor to the 
above-named review, and he did not publish his history until three years 
after this impeachment of his leading witnesses, yet he nowhere refers to the 
subject as we think he ought to have done. 



HISTOEY 



THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE PROBABLE ORIGIN OF THE AZTEC AND OTHER INDIANS. 

How historic material must be gathered, 31 — Causes of the extermination of 
the Indians, 33 — The law of the forest, 34 — The effect of task labor on the 
Indians, 35 — The absurdity of assigning to them a Jewish origin, 35 — The 
modification of races at the dispersion, 36 — The pretended Jewish origin of 
the Aztecs, 37 — The origin of the Aztecs, 38 — The pretended Aztec cove- 
nant with the Devil, 39 — Where did the monks get their information? 40 — 
The arrival of the Aztecs in the valley of Mexico, 41 — The first settlement 
in that valley, 42 — The value of Indian traditions, 42 — Indio-monkish tra- 
ditions, 44 — The ethnologist in Indian dialects, 46 — The founding of Mexico 
and Tacuba, 48 — Tezcuco in its glory, 49 — Aezahualcoyotl, the Magnificent, 
49 — The adornments of his palace, 50 — The imperial children, 51 — The 
palace of Tezcocingo, 52 — He plays the part of David in the tragedy of 
Uriah, 52 — Aezahualcoyotl a religious reformer, 53 — Aezahualcoyotl a 
poet, 54 — A translation from his poems, 55 — The fabulous city of Tezcuco, 
56 — The genius of Fernando de Alva, 57 — The value of De Alva, as wit- 
ness, 60 — Tezcuco without the fable, 60 — The federative system of the 
Aztecs and other Indians, 61 — Their law of descent, 62 — Indian law of 
succession, 62 — Their tribal divisions, 63 — Effect of this law on marriage 
and inheritance, 64 — Indian agrarian laws, 64 — Aztec laws of the common 
type, 66 — The existence of an Indian monarchy doubtful, 67 — Lord Kings- 
borough, 68 — The author's visit to Tezcuco, 70. 

As the pilots of the olden time ventured upon unknown 
coasts by the guidance of the stars alone, so, the searcher 
after historic truth, among Spanish authorities, has likewise 
to go forth without compass or chart. Here and there he 

(81) 



32 HISTORIC MATERIALS. 



may pick up material not in conflict with natural law — 
matter that bears the marks of apparent truth. This he 
must so weave, as to constitute the outHne of his history. 
He has to sift barrels of chaff for a grain of wheat; to 
con musty folios innumerable, and, when he has thus 
gathered that which is probable from among the obviously 
false, he must then in person carefully survey, also, the. 
country itself, to determine whether the apparently true 
is likewise the physically possible. He cannot trust to 
Spanish historians, even of the highest rank, in any matter 
that affects the interests of the church, or the interests of 
the state ; for he knows their works were licensed by the 
Inquisitors and Royal Councillors of Castile, after a most 
exact inquiry.* Those who are interested he must scan 
more closely still, as their glory is involved in the magni- 
tude of the affairs which they relate, in which they had 
borne, perhaps, a leading part. 

As for the supernatural, this is of course to be discarded, 
and with it every dramatic myth of the Virgin and the 
saints — often constituting as prominent a part as that of 
the prince in Shakspeare's Hamlet. He has to watch 
narrowly those, too, who, for popular applause, have 
changed history into mere romance, and gratified a morbid 
appetite for fiction under the color of historic truth. In 
writing a history of the Aztecs all must be rejected that 
is inconsistent with well established Indian traits. Mou- 



lin a subsequent note I have quoted the censors exercised their authority, 

from Lord Kingsborough an account even revoking the license after first 

of the seven eensorshipe of Spain, publication, 
and the extreme severity with which 



CAUSES OF INDIAN EXTINCTION. 33 



tezuma must be presented without a Moorish dress, and 
his people as they were — -Indians, not Arabs. 

More than three hundred years have passed since Spain 
estabhshed her dominion over the valley of Mexico. Of 
the three confederate Indian states, Tezcuco, Mexico, 
Tlacupa (Tacuba) which before that time occupied the 
valley and lorded it over the Anahuac, Tezcuco alone 
retained its independent existence, unimpaired to the last. 
Its rights were zealously watched over by a king's agent 
sent from Spain.* The others, subjugated by Cortez, had 
their people reduced to servitude. So widely were thej^ 
sundered in their relations to the Spaniards, and to each 
other. If cruelty and severity were the true and only 
causes of the extinction of the Indian races, then Tezcuco 
should have flourished ; as Tezcuco suffered nothing by 
the war — when the Mexicans and Tacubans were 
enslaved. One enjoyed all a king's favor could confer, 
while the others were subjected to the miseries that con- 
quest entails. Yet the same result has befallen both — 
contact with the whites has exterminated alike, friend and 
foe. A forest life, a forest atmosphere, was their wont, 
together with such a living as that forest had furnished 
for generations untold. The beaver and the elk are not 
more certainly doomed by the destruction of our forests, 
than were and are that race of men, who were set apart 
in the primitive divisions of mankind as its lords. Like 
caged lions, a few generated and a handful survived the 
revolution in their mode of life — enough to evidence what 



* See note to subsequent page, extracted from Thomas Gage, page 90. 
3 



34 THE LAW OF THE FOREST AND THE ELK. 



once existed — enough to prove too that a race differing 
from our own in its organism were the primitive inhabit- 
ants of the whole of this continent. Spanish crime and 
Spanish cruelty has indeed destroyed its thousands, but 
the wasting of the forests of the table-land its tens of 
thousands more. 

The history of Tezcuco is a history of Tlascala. The 
Spanish king most faithfully fulfilled the treaties of Cor- 
tez with that tribe, and with Cholula. But the power of 
an absolute king was unequal to restrain the operation of 
a natural law. The Tlascalans have shrunken to a frag- 
ment ; like our own Six Nations, the Iroquois, they have 
melted away. The great state of New York was the 
home country of the latter, though their dominion ex- 
tended to the Mississippi and Cumberland.* They 
were Indians that neither feared nor suffered from the 
cruelty of the whites ; on the contrary, they gave protec- 
tion first to the Dutch, and then to the English settlers, 



* This territory, lying between the They held under their dominion 

Hudson and Lake Erie, and embrac- the greater parts of these vast terri- 

ing the most valuable portion of our tories by the slender tenure of Indian 

state [the state of New York], consti- conquest. But New York was their 

tuted the Home Country of the Iro- hereditary country, the centre of their 

quois, as distinguished from other power, and the seat of their council 

territory upon the north, south, east, fires. Here were their villages, their 

and west, which they held in subjec- fields of maize and tobacco, their fish- 

tion by conquest, and occupied only ing and hunting grounds, and the 

in the season of the hunt. At the era burial place of their fathers. The 

of their highest military supremacy. Long House to which they likened 

about the year 1660, the Iroquois in their political edifice, opened its 

their warlike expeditions ranged un- eastern door upon the Hudson, while 

resisted from New England to the the western looked out upon Niagara. 

Mississippi, and from the St. Law- — Morgan's League of the Iroquois, 

reuce to the Tennessee. page 39. 



INDIANS NOT OF JEWISH ORIGIN. dO 



nor had they cause to complain of their ingratitude. The 
Algonquins, allies of the French, have also wasted like 
chaff before the wind ; and this in spite of all the favors 
heaped upon them. They have perished, the victims of 
an inexorable law, which exterminates the inhabitants 
of the forest when other races of mankind appear and 
dwell upon its borders. 

This principle in the constitution of the human family 
was not understood by Las Casas. He saw only the 
cruelty the Indians suffered, and the rapid progress of 
their decay ; and concluded the one to be the cause of the 
other, without suspecting, that a higher law was involved 
in the result ; a law whose operation neither cruelty nor 
kindness could materially influence. His brethren, the 
monkish missionaries, in after ages reached the true cause 
and the remedy, empirically. The Indian, compelled to 
abandon a forest life, was subjected to task-labor. If he 
survived the hardships of his new condition he became 
the progenitor of a family of agriculturalists {^Paehlanos) — 
a race that is now repeopling Spanish America. This 
grand distinction, between the indolent and warlike abo- 
rigines, and their present degenerate descendants, who 
have endured the servitude of centuries, must be care- 
fully noted. 

Las Casas, and most monkish historians of the New 
"World, have laid great stress upon the probable Jewish 
origin of the North American races; and where they 
have not taken this ground, they have assumed them to 
be descendants of the captive Ten Tribes. Lord Kings- 
borough devotes nearly the whole of one ponderous vol- 



36 MODIFICATION OF RACES. 



ume to a digest of the absurd reasoning of these monkish 
authors in favor of this improbable hypothesis. ^ Among 
the learned in Europe and here — not the learned in Indian 
affairs — the idea has been a popular one. The testimony 
upon which it rests does not indeed amount to much, 
though the Indians, one of the primitive races, may bear 
some slight resemblance to the Jews — the scion of ano- 
ther. Instead of believing America was peopled by acci- 
dent — by some stray party of vagabond Jews, or cast out 
Israelites — it is more reasonable to conclude that it 
received its proportion of the aboriginal population with 
the rest of the earth. Mankind was not created for the 
eastern continent alone, but to replenish the whole earth. 
When God confounded the languages of men — viz., sepa- 
rated them into distinct races, and scattered them abroad 
upon the face of the earth — did He neglect the western half? 
He that had power to create and afterwards to separate 
mankind into races, could certainly contrive many ways 
of transporting each to the region destined for it. 

Travellers who are daily brought into contact with a 
repellent stock, are slow to believe, that all have had a 
common origin. They conclude rather, without much 
reflection, to adopt the old Greek theory of autoch- 
thones, or that each race had its origin in the region 
in which it is now found. Thus, to resolve a difficulty 
of their own, they unnecessarily complicate the work 
of creation. Instead, we get at a simpler solution by 
adopting the theory — that on a common stock, certain 
peculiarities have been engrafted; fitting each race for 
some distinct portion of the globe ; and that this modifi- 



MODIFICATION" OF EACES. 37 



cation in the organism of the different families of mankind, 
took place at the time of the dispersion ; and was accom- 
panied with a modification also, of the animal races divi- 
ded among the various dispersed branches. All this, too, 
may well be implied in the dispersion. The object of the 
" confusion of tongues" was to destroy the unity of the 
human family — which could hardly be accomplished by a 
simple confusion of words. To make the confusion per- 
petual there must be, too, a difference in the desires, the 
tastes, and ruling passions, otherwise the object would not 
be effected for which the dispersion had been decreed. In 
the one case a language of signs would supply that of 
words until the original could be again learned. In the 
other, on the supposition that they were divided into 
divers races, each would repel the other, and then a separa- 
tion would become inevitable. This is apparently the 
idea of Holy Writ in using both the expressions, ''one 
language," and "one speech."* It is tautology, if but one 
idea is expressed, but if unity of purpose as well as unity 
of words is implied, by " one language and one speech," 
the whole narrative becomes intelligible. 

Color appears less a peculiarity of race, than of cli- 
mate.f The Jew varies in that with the country he 
inhabits. But be his color what it may, his race is 
indelibly engraven upon his countenance. The Saxon, 
comparatively a modern emigrant from that great hive 



* Genesis xi. 1. tral Africa; while showing them to be 

t Dr. Livingstone attributes to heat of the same race with the coffee-and- 

and moisture the jet black of the in- milk colored dwellers upon the higher, 

habitants of the humid shores of Cen- and dryer portions of the country. 



38 ORIGIN OF THE AZTECS. 



of nations — Central Asia — is now undistinguishable from 
the aboriginal inhabitant of Europe — the Celt.* None 
look for Jewish customs among them, or the Germans, 
and if they did, they would look in vain; though the 
Saxon must have left his oriental home a thousand years 
later than the American Indian. The Indians, remaining 
in a state of barbarism, may have retained many habits of 
their pastoral ancestors ; and the Israelites, oriental shep- 
herds during the greater part of their sacred history, must 
have had those common to every eastern nomad. This 
is about all the foundation which the thousand folios of 
monkish speculation possess on the subject of the Jewish 
origin of the Indians. A single glance, without an argu- 
ment, at the facial type of the two races, is sufficient to 
overturn so absurd a theory. 

The physiognomy of the Aztecs, unaided by tradition, 
clearly establishes their Californian origin, and places 
them in the great Indian family of the Pacific side — the 
black Indians. Yet, the difference between them and 
those of the Atlantic slope, is rather one of color and 
climate, than of organism or race. A milder temperature, 
a greater abundance of the necessaries of life, and exemp- 
tion from the hardships of a northern forest existence, 
has made them less fierce and untamable than their 
copper-colored brethren. This of itself accounts for the 
readiness with which they and the other tribes of the 
Anahuac submitted to the cruel servitude of their con- 
querors, without referring it to the " all powerful interpo- 

* We use the word Celt here as it the French and Spanish ambassadors 
was used in the discussion between at the Council of Trent. 



AZTEC COVENANT WITH THE DEVIL. 39 



sition of the blessed Virgin and the saints," that idea 
belongs to poets and Mexican tradition-mongers. 

We come now to a peculiar feature of Aztec history — 
one to which the Spanish historian never refers without 
devoutly crossing himself — we mean the covenant rela- 
tions existing between the Aztecs and the author of all 
evil — the Devil. This forms the substratum of Spanish 
Mexican history — and is also " the foundation and key"* of 
the great work of Torquemada — his " Indian Monarchy." 
The title to one of whose chapters reads thus : — " How 
it has heen the wish of the Devil to substitute himself in the 
place of God by taking a chosen x^eople, lohich he constituted 
in the Mexicans^ Herrera, the royal historiographer of 
the Indians, expresses himself also in relation to this evil 
spirit : — " Never did Devil hold such familiar converse with 
men as he ; and accordingly he thought proper in all things 
to copy the departure from Egypt and the pilgrimage per- 
formed by the children of Israel" * Even Friar Sahagan, 
whose " Universal History of New Spain" occupies the 
whole of the seventh and part of the fifth volume of Lord 
Kingsborough, is troubled by hearing " a voice that ap- 
peared to him to exceed all human limits," and which he 
very devoutly ascribes to the Devil — the Devil, the child- 
ren of Israel, and the Jews are the staple of all Spanish 
historians of the Aztecs. The question as they state it is, 
" Were the Aztecs the " peculiar people" whom the Devil 
chose out of Aztlan — California, to lead through the wilder- 
ness and finally plant in Mexico ? In our humble opinion 
there are divers objections to this story, notwithstanding 

* Lord Kingsborough, vi., page 242. 



40 SOURCE OF MONKISH INFORMATION. 



the " weiglit of historical authority'' upon which it ijests I 
The great Sahagan, " the father of Aztec history ;" Torque- 
mada, "who derived his information, like Sahagan, from 
almost fifty years' intercourse with the natives;" Herrera, 
the royal historian, and almost every other named as 
authority by our own, are filled with such childish trash. 
It would be unpardonable, perhaps, to presume these 
monkish chroniclers derived their knowledge from a living 
witness — from Satan himself! — "from an almost fifty years' 
intercourse" with one whose reputation for truth is even 
worse than theirs. The " best authenticated" story sets 
forth that the Devil led his peculiar people out of Aztlan — 
California, personally, and finally, after sundry migrations, 
planted them in the valley of Mexico ! It was a blessing 
to California, no doubt, thus to have got rid of that peculiar 
people ! But what motive there was in this exodus, and 
why they were thus led from that land of gold to the 
Mexican valley, does not clearly appear. Was it the cor- 
rupting influence of gold upon their morals ? or was it only 
a freak of Satan to withdraw them from temptation? 
Whatever the cause, these pretended movements of the 
Devil constitute " the foundation and hey'' of the official 
and duly licensed tales of the conquest of Mexico, and its 
imaginary Aztec Empire. Before the time of Cortez, the 
staple thread is the wonderful working of the Devil. 
Then the miracle of the conquest — in which the Devil 
clearly performed the principal part — succeeds, though 
his acts are wrongfully ascribed to the Virgin and the 
saints. Excepting in the interested testimony of Cortez, 
the adventures of the Devil have exactly the same 



AREIVAL OF THE AZTECS. 41 



high, authority as that which endorses the Spanish history 
of the conquest ! The historians we have quoted give 
it the sanction of their exalted names ; and it has the sup- 
port of tradition, regulated by authority — that is, Spanish 
tradition! And these myths stand side by side with 
those of the conquest — with those of the miraculous 
apparition of the Virgin in the Guadalupe suburb, and 
with those of the Virgin of Remedies. 

Rejecting this agency in the Aztec migration, we find 
in it but an ordinary instance of the roving propensities 
of American Indians. They wandered from point to 
point, leaving colonies at each stopping-place, until one 
party more venturous than the rest entered the lower 
valley of Mexico — a spot possessing few attractions for 
any but savages.* It was then an everglade, containing 
several mud islands, conveniently located for fishing and 
the snaring of birds, that to this day abound in the long 
grass and rushes of the fresh water lagunas. On these 
islands they built huts, and there gathered nightly, when 
war or the chase did not prevent. There they listened 
to such tales of wild adventure as the childish fancies of 
Indians conjure up; or to historic traditions, the real 

* An island embosomed in a marsh Aztecs selected this place as the site 

has always formed a favorite retreat of their village ; and to reach it, it 

for an Indian tribe, whether among was necessary to make one or more 

the everglades of Florida, or the wild- footpaths across the marsh. As the 

rice swamps of north-western Canada. Aztecs had no beasts of burden, this 

Such a retreat is still more desirable must have been a task of no little 

when, in addition to the security it magnitude. To have made it thirty 

affords from an enemy, it is likewise feet wide would not only have been a 

a resort for wild ducks, as was and is work of immense difBculty, but would 

the case with the laguna of the Mesi- have destroyed the defensive character 

can valley. Hence, probably, the of their position. — Wilson's Mexico. 



42 FIRST SETTLEMENT IN THE VALLEY. 



and the fabulous united ; or to the adventures of their 
war-chiefs with hobgobhns and giants. And there they 
slept in peace too, protected by the morass that begirt 
them. 

Before entering the valley of Mexico, these rovers ap- 
peared at Tlascala; where the Nahuatlac, the language 
of the Aztecs, is still the predominant tongue, of the three 
spoken or that were spoken by that people. The next 
effort at colonization was the establishment of a small 
settlement on the most convenient spot for procuring salt. 
Such a spot was found where Tezcuco now stands ; and 
there, according to unanimous Indian tradition, was the 
original settlement in the valley. From Tezcuco, parties 
wandered off, fishing and bird-catching, so says tradition ; 
and from them came the founders of the cities of Mexico 
and Tacuba. 

As we have been driven to Indian tradition, to esta- 
blish an unimportant point, it is proper at once to fix 
the value hereafter to be given to such testimony. The 
chronicles of a primitive and patriarchal age must not 
be confounded with those of our forests. They are as 
much elevated above the latter as the patriarchs them- 
selves were above the condition of savages. The pas- 
toral life of those early times was unfavorable to the 
preservation of records. The few facts necessary to be 
perpetuated were the chronology of their family and 
their religion ; next in importance to these, was that of 
their domestic animals.* For as, on their purity of blood 

* " A Bedouin, wrapped in his rag- tent. He had been my guest the pre- 
ged cloak, was seated listlessly in the ceding evening, at Nimrod, and had 



VALUE OF INDIAN TRADITION. 



43 



depended the chief value of that property ; thus the purity 
of their own was scarcely less a subject of solicitude. 
So far chronological accuracy was an object with those 
famous dwellers in tabernacles. Among the Indians of 
Mexico none of these causes existed. They have indeed 
innumerable legends. The passion for romantic tales 
is not conj&ned to our fashionable circles j it extends to 
the remotest limits of the forest. In civilized society 
these are printed and read. There they are recited, by 
story-tellers or tradition-mongers, to circles of eager listen- 
ers. These tales are as wild as the homes in which they 
are rehearsed, and as childish as the untaught intellect 
would necessarily produce. Their number is legion.* 



announced himself on a mission from 
the Shammar to the Tai to learn the 
breed of the mares that had been 
taken in the late conflict. His mes- 
sage might appear to those ignorant 
of the customs of the Arabs, one of 
insult and defiance. But he was on a 
common errand, and although there 
was blood between the tribes, his per- 
son was as sacred as that of an am- 
bassador in any civilized community. 
Whenever a horse falls into the hands 
of an Arab, his first thought is how 
to ascertain its descent." — Latard's 
Nineveh and Babylon, page 187. 

* " The proneness of the Indian 
mind to superstitious beliefs is chiefly 
to be ascribed to their legendary lite- 
rature. The fables which have been 
handed down from generation to gene- 
ration, to be rehearsed to the young 
from year to year, would fill volumes. 
These fabulous tales for exuberance 
of fancy and extravagance of inven- 
tion not only surpass the fireside sto- 



ries of all other people, but to their 
diversity and number there is appa- 
rently no limit. There were fables 
of a race of pigmies who dwelt within 
the earth, but who were endued with 
such herculean strength as to tear up 
by its roots t&e forest oak, and shoot 
it from their bows ; fables of a bufi"alo 
of such huge dimensions as to thresh 
down the forest in his march ; fables 
of ferocious flying heads wingingthem- 
selves through the air ; of serpents 
paralyzing by a look; of a monster 
mosquito, who thrust his bill through 
the bodies of his victims ; drew their 
blood in the twinkling of an eye. 
There were fables of a race of stone 
giants, who dwelt in the North ; of a 
monster bear, more terrible than the 
buffalo ; of a monster lizard, more 
destructive than the serpent. There 
were tales of witches, and supernatu- 
ral visitations, together with marvel- 
lous stories of personal adventure. 
Superadded to the fables of this de- 



44 INDIO-MONKISH TRADITIONS. 



The Indians have also some vague notions on the subject 
of religion, of ghosts and of spirits. But so ill-defined are 
and were these, that their Spanish oppressors have repre- 
sented them as utter pagans, while we consider them the 
worshippers of one Great Spirit. Much that is probably 
true in these relations, is intermixed with the impossible 
adventures of their braves. As in the case of every un- 
civilized race, the distinction between the fabulous and 
the real is not very clearly marked. Unsupported by 
other evidence, proof, such as this, is not therefore reliable 
as authority ; and yet the folios of Spanish Aztec history 
have no other foundation — the fiction of the Aztec pic- 
tured manuscripts being admitted. 

There is yet, however, another class of traditions — 
monkish ideas distilled through Indian brains. Contend- 
ing daily with the wild animals of the forest for a liveli- 
hood, the savage acquires a development of his sensuous 
abilities unknown to the dwellers in cities, or the culti- 
vators of the soil. These faculties outstrip his intellectual 
advancement. His very language is so barren of words, 
that the native orator is compelled to tropes and figures 
drawn from forest life, to give force to those wild harangues 
which distinguish the meetings of the tribes. The ideas 
and the language of the Indian are peculiarly devoted to 
the affairs of this life. When, therefore, their monkish 
teachers instructed them in a religion beyond the Indian 
myth of the Great Spirit, the work could not begin with- 
out the pre-creation of compound words to express their 

scription were legends upon a thou- bellished with fiction." — IMorgan's 
sand subjects, in which fact was em- League of the Iroquois, page 166. 



INDIO-MONKISH TRADITIONS. 45 



meaning. Latin and Spanish formularies, these missiona- 
ries could compel their hearers daily to recite, but of 
course, they could not comprehend them. New words that 
grew inconveniently long, in process of time were arbi- 
trarily shortened, according to the rules of contraction 
in Indian languages. Many words, therefore, and the 
ideas expressed by them, were unintelligible beyond the 
limits of the missions.* Within the missions they were 
useful in two ways — useful to the monks in communi- 
cating incomprehensible ideas, and useful to the Indians 
in their replies. When questioned about the ancient my- 
thology, the latter had only to repeat with slight variations* 
the lessons daily taught, and this was entirely satisfactory 
to the most inquisitive ! True, the ^^fathers" were filled 
with astonishment often to find that there had been such 
a striking resemblance in the ancient worship to their 
own. But this, when corroborated by the crosses and 
madonnas portrayed on the ruined Phoenician temples 
of the hot country, they looked upon as evidence that the 
Apostle Thomas had actually preached the Gospel in the 
Anahuac.f In their eagerness to discover Romish cus- 

* The Iroquois rule of contraction composition of his work on the sam'i 

is to strike out the two last syllables subject which he entitled The Phoenix 

of the first of the words compounded, of the West, which I have not been 

and the two first of the next word, &c. able yet to procure, as it never was 

f Boturnini, speaking of his collec- printed. I say in reference to the 

tion of MSS. and paintings, says, " I preaching of the holy apostle that I 

likewise possess some historical no- am in possession of a painting on 

tices concerning the preaching of the linen of the most holy cross of the 

Gospel in America by the glorious mountain Tianguiztepetl, which I 

Apostle St. Thomas. They are Con- have before spoken of in Sec. 20, No. 

tained in thirty-four sheets of Chinese 20, of this catalogue, which is painted 

paper, and I suppose assisted Don in the form of a Tau, about a cubit 

Carlos de Siguenza y Glongora in the in height, and of a beautiful azure 



46 THE ETHNOLOGISTS. 



toms among their converts, they neglected to sift carefully 
the evidence. They never dreamed these figments were 
their own, distorted by their passage through an Indian 
medium. Human sacrifice, we will leave for the present. 
Before closing this discussion of Indian peculiarities, we 
must refer to a new class of philosophers, that have arisen 
among us — the Ethnologists, who trace the pathways of 
tribes and nations by an analogy of words and language. 
With them the Persians and Saxons are alike offspring 
of the Sanscrit — and with the Bramins, have a common 
origin. This kind of evidence has really weight only 
when it is shown, that the original was a settled, if not 
a written tongue, before any migration took place. But 
applied to the ever shifting dialects of savage tribes, the 
facts assumes another phase. When a missionary settles 
among a new race, his first labor is to reduce the ver- 

blue, intermixed with figures resem- had also been deposited in the said 

bling white stars, having on its right cave since the Pagan times, and was 

side a shield likewise of a blue color, discovered by the music of angels 

with five white balls in the middle, being heard in the said cave on every 

undoubtedly emblematical of the five vigil of the glorious apostle. The 

most precious wounds of the Re- above-mentioned preaching is so 

deemer, which monuments have been clearly indicated in the histories of 

preserved from the time of Paganism the Indians, that it is even recounted 

to our days, without the rain or the in the paintings of the Chontales, 

other inclemencies of the atmosphere amongst whom a most miraculous 

to which they had been exposed cross was discovered besides the other 

having been able, during so many crosses which the Spaniards found in 

ages, to fade the colors. I also pos- the Island of Potonchan to which the 

sess a painting on linen of another Indians offered adoration, presenting 

most holy cross of wood, which was them flowers and incense, and invok- 

drawn by means of a machine, that ing them under the name of the God 

was made on purpose out of an in- Tluloc, the God of Rain. Many traces 

accessible cave of Mizteca Baxa, and moreover of the holy feet of the said 

which is at present venerated in the apostle have remained in different 

Convent Church of Touala, belonging places of New Spain." — Lord Kings- 

to the fathers of St. Dominic, which borough, yoI. VI., p. 418. 



FOUNDING OF MEXICO AND TACUBA. 47 



nacular of those about him to a written form — by the 
combination of certain Latin letters which recall to him 
certain sounds. The grammar thus produced is a Latin 
one, slightly modified to the peculiarities of the case. 
The process of this language improvisator is purely arbi- 
trary — it is the work of an alien. In a distant portion of 
this same tribe there may be, perhaps, another missionary 
employing another set of letters to recall the self-same 
sounds, and one who may differ too in his grammatical 
variations. Here, we should have two distinct written, for 
one spoken language. We can also conceive a case, 
wherein those really different, might be represented by 
the same set of foreign characters. Thus much for Indian 
dialects turned into a modified Latin. Now comes the 
ethnologist. He compares these various foreign gram- 
mars, and from them reads the history of, as he supposes, 
races, and determines their origin ! 

For the present we give over the labor of rescuing 
Indian character from the false coloring given it by monks 
and savans, and begin our narrative. Near the foot of the 
laguna (pond) of Tezcuco, on the lowest spot of dry-land 
in the valley of Mexico, and close under its eastern moun- 
tain barrier, stands the "imperial city"* of that name. 
There died, and there was buried, Don Fernando, its first 
Christian lord or king; and there, beside him, in after 
years, were laid the bones of his friend Cortez.f A 

* This is the title applied to Tez- f Algunos anos despues de su 

cuco by Mr. Prescott, as we shall have muerte, y en complimiento de su 

occasion to notice hereafter ; he has ultima voluntad fueron conducidas 

adopted as an authority the quadroon sus cenizas d, este antigo teatro de sus 

Don Fernando de Alya. glorias, depositandose en una caja en 



48 



FOUNDING OF MEXICO AND TACUBA. 



pile, or rather wall, of rough stones marks their place 
of burial. On one side is a small stone chapel built by 
Cortez; on the other, a Franciscan church and convent 
of more ample dimensions, and of more modem construc- 
tion, where vegetate eight monks whose evil reputation 
pollutes the moral atmosphere of Tezcuco.* There, accord- 
ing to the quadroon, Don Fernando de Alva, also styling 
himself by the unpronounceable Indian name of Iztlilxo- 
chitl, was located the famous Nalhuatlan Academy (coun- 
cil) of Music, in which seats were provided for the three 
crowned heads of the empire,-]- viz., the lords of Tezcuco, 
of Mexico, and Tacuba. The last two scions of the 
ancient seat of empire; J for, from Tezcuco migrated 
the founders of the second imperial city of the lagima — 



el iglesia de San Francisco de Tez- 
coco, donde se conservaron hasta el 
mes Febraro de 1629, en que fuei'on 
conducidas y sepultadas con gran 
pompa y solemuidad en union de las 
de sue nieto D. Pedro que fallecio en 
Mexico en la capilla mayor del con- 
vento de San Francisco de esta capi- 
tal. Alii permanecieron los vestos 
del conquistador hasta el dia 2 de 
Julio de 1794 en que fueron transla- 
dados a la iglesia de Jesus. — Apuntes 
Historicos por Miguel M. Lerdo de 
Tezjada, page 260. 

* There are here eight Franciscan 
monks and a convent ; seven of these 
monks, I was assured, were living at 
home with their families and child- 
ren, but the eighth, who happened to 
be a cripple, lived in the convent. A 
major in the guard was pointed out to 
me, who, having committed a murder, 
took sanctuary in the church, where 
he remained several days, when — and 



we have his own word for it — the 
Virgin Mary appeared to him and 
freely forgave him. On this news 
getting abroad, there was great rejoic- 
ing in Tezcuco that the Virgin had at 
last visited them. — Wilson's Mexico. 

t " Seats were provided for the 
three crowned heads of the Empire." 
— Prescott, Vol. I., page 171. 

Three imperial capitals, and three 
crowned heads of the empire within 
a space of sixteen miles, in a moun- 
tain valley twenty miles in extent, 
and more than half that space filled 
with salt-marsh ! If the upper or 
northern valley of Mexico be added 
to it, then we have an additional ter- 
ritory of sixty by about twelve miles. 
Rather a limited space for three 
imperial crowned heads to occupy. 

X In Indian phrase it would be the 
Bark House, and the Archon would 
be the keeper of the Wamjjum. 



AEZAHUALCOYOTL THE MAGNIFICENT. 49 



Mexico; erected upon a mud island* fifteen miles distant 
across the marsh. From Mexico migrated a third colony, 
which founded upon the opposite main land, and at the 
distance of about a league, the third and least important 
monarchy of the three — Tacuba. 

For a long time the question of the Arclionship was in 
abeyance among historians ; to which of the three impe- 
rial cities of the confederacy belonged the pre-eminence 
they knew not. Tezcuco at one time was in danger from 
the great renown of the island-city, and the melancholy 
interest excited by the fate of Montezuma and his people. 
But the brilliant genius of her above-named son, de Alva, 
the quadroon, — like most of his class, claiming imperial 
descent on his mother's side, — has fully established the 
ancient renown of his alleged ancestors, and the former 
magnificence of his native village. He has restored its 
fame and its title to leadership among historians, besides 
establishing its claim to the pre-eminent position of " the 
Athens of the western world, "f 

After following the migrations of savage tribes and 
listening to the songs of Indian strollers, the historic scene 
shifts, and the historian introduces us to the elegancies 
of what might well be called oriental civilization — to the 
voluptuous magnificence of the fabled Imperial Seraglio 
of Tezcuco ; to the grandeur of the court of its imperial 
lord, to his city and to his rural palaces, to his hanging 
gardens, and his villas, which combined all the sensuous 



* Every building in the city of Mexico, above the condition of a mud hut, 
is founded upon piles driven into the ground. 

f See Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, vol. I., page 173. 
4 



50 ADORNMENTS OF THE PALACE. 



delights, represented in the tales of the Arabians, or 
romances of the Moors. The scene opens with Aezahual- 
coyotl the Magnificent, under whose wise administration 
Tezcuco reached, as alleged, the climax of imperial great- 
ness. His is the golden age of her annals. Aezahual- 
coyotl distinguished himself as a warrior; leading forth 
the armies of the imperial confederacy to the conquest of 
rich provinces and powerful kingdoms. His dominion 
extended over vast regions of the hot country ; which 
produced in spoil and tribute sufiicient to support the 
most extravagant conceptions of his genius. While war 
was waged without, at home agriculture and the arts 
flourished. Cities and villages sprung up everywhere. 
The very mountain-steeps were made to reward the labors 
of the amculturist. 

o 

Aezahualcoyotl was said to be as successful in prose- 
cuting the arts of peace as those of war. He made his 
capital to rival Bagdad, in the days of its greatest pros- 
perity. His city palace, for he had divers others, was 
twelve hundred and thirty-four yards in length by nine 
hundred and seventy-six in breadth. The palaces of a 
numerous nobility also adorned his capital. Alabaster 
with stucco, in variegated colors, adorned the walls. 
Shrubbery and the richest ornamental trees of the 
tropics* formed, according to Moorish custom, a pleasant 
relief to the stiffness of architecture; while fountains 
enveloped in artificial dew both shrubs and trees. Among 
these arbors were baths and ponds stocked with beautiful 
fish, while gaudy plumed birds of the tropics filled exten- 

* Tezcuco is not in the hot country ! 



THE king's family. 61 



sive aviaries. " Many birds and animals that could not 
be obtained alive were represented in gold and silver, so 
skilfully that they furnished the great naturalist, Her- 
nandez, with models for his work."* 

In the palace were accommodations provided, on a lordly 
scale, for the sovereigns of Mexico and Tacuba, when 
they visited the court, as well as apartments for the king 
and his harem, halls for public archives, a council cham- 
ber, and the courts of justice. But, notwithstanding the 
vast extent of this abode, and its three hundred apart- 
ments — so vast that it employed two hundred thousand 
workmen in its construction — the building was insufficient 
to shelter the king's children. His "sixty sons and fifty 
daughters"* were accommodated in buildings adjoining; 
where they were taught accomplishments suited to their 
station ; including the arts of working in metals, jewelry, 
and feather mosaic. This king's wealth and resources 
were so enlarged by his wise and prudent administration, 
that he was enabled to sustain a domestic establishment 
even greater than that of Solomon, as appears from the 
following items, which Torquemada declares he extracted 
from an imperial account-book,-|- viz. 4,900,300 fanagos, 



* Prescott, vol. I., page 173. his possession ; or an imperial ac- 

t Torquemada, Lib. 2, c. 53. It is count book of any kind. We can 

unfortunate that our very jBrst in- never find fault vrith a Spanish 

troduction to so distinguished an author for inventing embellishments 

author, as Torquemada really is, to exalt the achievements of the hero 

should be under such unfortunate of his history, for he enjoyed the same 

circumstances. It is unnecessary to license as the poets. But here we have 

inform the reader that the proba- unfortunately no such apology, but 

bility is, there never was any such an exhibition of the besetting sin of 

imperial account book as the one Spaniards — the "monks' evil," lying. 
Torquemada professes to have had in 



52 PALACE OF TEZCUZIJSTGO. 



or hundreds weight, of corn, 2,744,000 fanagos cacao, and 
8000 turkeys ! Dreadful eaters those Tezcucans ! 

Besides his numerous villas, this prince built Tezcu- 
zingo, or little Tezcuco, upon a conical hill, some five 
miles from the capital. It was approached by five hun- 
dred steps ; some of them hewn in the solid porphyry. 
About this hill were hanging gardens, terraced upon its 
sides ; while the crest was plentifully supplied with water 
from an aqueduct, carried for several miles over hills and 
valleys on huge buttresses of solid masonry.* In the 
reservoirs there was statuary, and jets of water raining 
continuous moisture upon the lower beds of these gardens. 
In the midst of this elysium were marble porticos, 
with pavilions, and baths of solid porphyry. In one was 
a winged lion, with a portrait of the emperor in his 
mouth. The water was also carried over artificial rocks 
in cascades, and carried about the gardens in canals. 
In the main reservoir was a large rock on which was 
sculptured the most important events of the reign, while 
in three smaller were marble statues representing each 
one of the three states of the empire. 

This Aezahualcoyotl played the part of David in the 
tragedy of Uriah. The old lord of Tepechpan had a 
beautiful girl, whom he was educating to become his wife, 
according to the custom of the country. This girl did the 
honors of the table to his Indian majesty, when a guest 
of the old lord. The consequence was, that a violent 
passion sprang up in the king for the betrothed of his 



* In this description the author has but must be distinctly understood as 
followed tlie most authentic historians, not endorsing them. 



DAYID AND URIAH. 53 



hostj which he determined to gratify at the sacrifice of the 
old man's hfe. Accordingly he sent orders to him to 
assume the command of an expedition against the Tlas- 
calans. At the same time two persons were instructed 
to keep close by him, and to entice him into the thickest 
of the fight, that he might lose his life. The result of 
this plot was the same as in the case of Uriah : the 
doomed victim was slain by the enemy. After this 
obstacle was removed the royal courtship began, and of 
course terminated with the most happy results. In such 
cases the current of love does not run very roughly in 
its course. Dazzled with the brilliance of a royal lover, 
who had the additional charm of youth to commend him, 
the dusky maiden was not likely long to wear the weeds 
of widowhood for one neither young nor royal. Believing 
the death of her old lord one of the casualties of war, 
she was easily persuaded that a living king was better 
than a dead hero, and eventually became the wife of the 
royal murderer of her betrothed. Matters being secretly 
arranged, the intended bride appeared in public to witness 
some spectacle at Tezcosingo. There Aezahualcoyotl, the 
royal murderer, espied the beautiful virgin from a balcony, 
and inquired, in pretended ignorance, who she was, and 
where she was from. The gratification of the royal in- 
quisitiveness led to an acquaintance, which terminated 
in public pledges of mutual affection ; and in the end, the 
old lord's betrothed becomes the young king's wife. Thus 
ends the parody. 

Aezahualcoyotl plays also the part of the Calif Haroun, 
in the Arabian Nights, wandering about the markets to 
hear, likewise, what his people said of him. But, like 



54 AEZAHUALCOYOTL A POET. 



most such listeners, he was not always gratified by what 
he heard. He was a religious reformer; abjuring the 
paganism of the Mexicans,* he restored the worship of 
the Great Spirit. He built a mound, and on it a tower 
nine stories high to represent the nine heavens, while 
over all a tenth was placed with a roof painted black 
outside, and profusely gilded with ornamental stars. 
Within, this upper story was encrusted with metals and 
precious stones. From the top of this tower [minaret] 
the worshijDpers were summoned to prayers at stated 
intervals. No image was allowed in this mosque. Such, 
according to de Alva, was the worship he encouraged. 

Aezahualcoyotl was not only a patron of the fine arts, 
but likewise of learning, and of learned men. In his 
council of music sat, by invitation, the most learned of 
the realm ; associated with whom were the three crowned 
heads of the empire. But the greatest achievement of 
this Indian prince was his dalliance with the muses. In 
the academy he contended with citizens for the prizes 
that were to be bestowed as the rewards of superior 
excellence. De Alva has preserved, in Castilian, poetic 
specimens, which he claims as the production of his 
alleged maternal ancestor, Aezahualcoyotl. These speci- 
mens, in look and color suggesting a Moorish origin, have 
yet so much real merit, they cannot fail securing for de 

* There was no hazard in telling quois, page 157.) As they worshipped 

the truth about the religious worship only one of these, the Great Spirit, it 

of Tezcuco, as that village was in was easy to represent them either as 

favor with Cortez. Besides the In- Monotheists, or Polytheists, according 

dian belief in the Great Spirit, they to the caprice of the author. Thus 

believed the sky to be filled with the Mexicans were Polytheists, and 

spirits, the spirit of the wind, the the Tezcucans Monotheists, though 

spirit of the corn, &c. — (Morgan's Zro- their religion was doubtless the same. 



AEZAHUALCOTOTL A POET. 



65 



Alva, whether as a translator or the real author, the 
reputation of superior genius. Whether the MS. of de 
Alva be regarded as a history or a fable, our interest in its 
author must be the same. To wipe out the disgrace that 
in his day rested upon a quadroon, and upon all tainted 
with Indian blood, he consecrated his talents. And in 
the production of a work, which has sufficient merit to 
have gained it a position among standard histories, he 
accomplished his purpose ; merging his own claims, as a 
poet, with those of his alleged ancestor of a despised race. 
We subjoin a specimen of this Indian's muse — to which 
is added a borrowed translation : — 



A CASTILIAN AND ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF AN EXTRACT FROM A POEM BY THE 
EMPEKOR OF TEZCUCO. 



" T en tan triste suceso 
los nobles descendientes de tu nedo 
de Principis el peso 
los que de nobles Padre nan nacido 
metando tu cabeza 
gustaran la amargura de podreza. 

Y traeran a la memoria 
quien fuiste en pompa de todos envidiada 
tus triumphos y victoria; 
y con la gloria y Magistad pasada 
cotejando pesares 
de lagrimas haran crecidus Mares. 

En Mexico famoso 
Montezumd valor de pecho Indiano 



' The birds of thy ancestral nests 

The princes of thy line — 
The mighty of thy race — shall see 
The bitter ills of poverty ; — 
And then shall memory recall 
Thy envied greatness, and on all 

Thy brilliant triumphs dwell ; 
And as they think on by-gone years 
Compared with present shame, their teaw 

Shall to an ocean swell. 



Brave Montezuma's Indian band 

With Mexico the great 
And Aezahnalcoyotl's * hand 

Blessed Colhuacan's f State 



* As this emperoi- poet died in 1470, 
at the age of 72, it follows that this 
notice of Montezuma the Great was 
written about fifty years before he 
was born, and before the time of the 
first Montezuma. 

t As these Indian proper names are 
probably now unpronounceable by 



any persons living, it is well enough 
to adopt the practice of the inhabi- 
tants of Mexico, and call them all 
Montezuma. 

f This is the name given to Tezcuco. 
The common language of the valley is 
called Nahuatlac. 



56 THE FABULOUS CITY OF TEZCUCO. 



k Culhuacan dichosa Whilst Totoqnil his portion drew 

de Ae^ahualcoyotl rigio la mano In Acatlapan strong and true 

Acatlapan la fuerte But no ohIiTion can I fear 

Totoquilhuastli le sali6 per suerte Of good by thee accomplished here 

Y ningun olvido temo Whilst high upon thy throne 

de la bien que tu regno dispusiste That station which to match thy worth 

estando en el supremo Was given by the Lord of Earth 

lugar, que mano recibiste Maker of good alone." 
de aquel Senor del Mundo 
factor de aquestas cosas sin segundo. 



Such, substantially, is the picture which poets and Jds- 
torians are alike accustomed to draw of the famous empire 
of Tezcuco — the intellectual creation of Fernando de Alva, 
styling himself Ixtliloxochitl — a creation so enchanting, 
that strangers have adopted it as a verity, without stop- 
ping to inquire whether this beautiful fabric rested upon 
air, or a more substantial foundation. This fancy-created 
city, it is pretended, however, was built of the most solid 
material. Its hanging gardens were upon a hill of ]3or- 
phyry. Its aqueduct was " carried over hill and valley for 
several miles, upon huge buttresses of masonry." Such a 
city existing at the time of the conquest, could not be 
entirely destroyed in the short period of three centuries, 
and every vestige of its magnificence obliterated by the 
slight earthquakes which have visited the valley of Mexico 
since. What it was then, it should be substantially now. 
We ought still to read the inscriptions on the '* large rock 
in the midst of the basin," as we do those upon the ruins 
of Nineveh. It has not been subjected to the casualties 
that befell that ancient city. Its ruins could not be used 
for building the mud village that has supjolanted it. 
Hardly four hundred years have passed since the alleged 
period of its glory, while as many thousand, with all the 



GENIUS OF FERNANDO DE ALVA. 57 



casualties that time carries in its train, have been unable 
to blot out Nineveh's ancient grandeur. We can read 
to-daj its history upon its extensive ruins.* But nothing 
like this can be found upon the site of the alleged city 
of Tezcuco. There are no remains of ancient aqueduct, 
or hanging garden, nor of its magnificent palaces and 
surrounding villas, nor of its halls of justice. Even the 
walls of its vast enclosures have left no trace. Like the 
baseless fabric of a Chateau dJEspagne, there is not a 
wreck- — not eVen an epitaph. 

It is not often that a man, resting under the disabilities 
of a quadroon, can, by the force of his genius alone, wash 
away the stigma of impure blood, and still more, make 
even that a means of exalting himself to rank and no- 
bility. We may question the morality of de Alva, but 
not his intellect. Holding the humble position of an 
Indian interpreter, he, a hundred years after the con- 
quest, painted a genealogical tree, so beautifully, that the 
very birds might lodge upon its branches ; and the tra- 
veller, as he passes, can fancy he inhales its fragrance. 
By a happy combination of Moorish, Arabic, and Oriental 
story, he has produced a dramatic sketch so enchanting, 
that its many physical, moral, and mental impossibilities 
are entirely overlooked, and this fancy creation of de Alva 
is named and ranked with Spanish-American history.^ 

* See Layard's Nineveh and Baby- is only the counterpart of the fabu- 

lon ; also Nineveh and its Remains. lous picture Cortez drew of the im- 

t If the reader will turn to Folsom's perial city of Mexico, under the 

edition of the Letters of Cortez (trans- reign of Montezuma, with a few ad- 

lation), p. 110, he will find that this ditions drawn from Scripture His- 

picture, which our Indian author tory, Moorish Romances, and the 

draws of the imperial city of Tezcuco., Arabian Nights. 



58 



GENIUS OF FERNANDO DE ALVA. 



It was hard to give up so beautiful an historic dream, 
even after the author had explored the spot, and found 
there only the usual reliques of savage art, such as they 
are over the entire continent — rude stone images ham- 
mered out with hatchets of stone, and small Indian 
mounds. Nearly all else was dried mud,* except two 
churches. The reality we ascertain from de Alvas con- 
temporary, the English Friar, Thomas Gage, who sets it 
down as a small village, which might contain a popula- 
tion of three hundred Indians and one hundred whites, 
whose "chief riches come by gardening, and sending 
daily herbs and sailers to Mexico f-\ and, he might have 



* It is not proper to call adobes 
unburnt brick. With the word brick 
we connect the idea of clay. But 
adobes are not made out of clay un- 
less by accident. It is simply the 
surface earth (soil) stirred up in 
water and mixed with straw. It is 
moulded in very large blocks ; the 
ordinary width of a house wall, and 
dried by exposure to the sun in the 
dry season. 

f Friar Thomas Gage, just a hun- 
dred years after the conquest, thus 
discourses of Tezcuco and Mesical- 
zingo : — 

" And as we talked of the greatness 
of it [Tezcuco] in former times, so like- 
wise we now wondered to consider it 
to be but a small government where 
doth constantly reside a Spanish go- 
vernor (Indian agent) sent from 
Spain, whose power reacheth to those 
borders of Tlascala Guacocingo, and 
to most of the petty towns and vil- 
lages of the plain, which were formerly 



under the command and power of a 
king. But now are not able to make 
up above 1000 duchats a year, which 
is supposed to be the yearly revenue of 
the governor; and Tezcuco itself this 
day judged to consist only of a hundred 
Spaniards and three hundred Indian 
inhabitants, whose chief riches come 
from gardening and sending daily in 
their canoes herbs and sailers to Mexi- 
co. * * * At the end of this plain 
we passed the Mexicalzingo, which 
formerly was a great town, but now 
not of above one hundred inhabi- 
tants." — A New Survey of the West 
Indians, page 90. 

The above quoted English Friar 
was a contemporary of Ixtlilxochitl, 
the famous historian of Indian de- 
scent, and according to his own show- 
ing of the blood imperial of Tezcuco. 
The difference in the pictures which 
the two draw of the same place is 
certainly wonderful ! 



VALUE OF DE ALYA AS WITNESS. 59 



added, in raking tequesquita* for the manufacture of salt 
in winter. 

By a clerical error in one of the volumes of Prescott,f 
de Alva is represented as flourishing at the beginning of 
the sixteenth century instead of the seventeenth,^ a man 
of three-fourths white blood flourishing at an Indian vil- 
lage twenty-five years before the arrival of the first of 
the whites from whom he was descended ! This error in 
dates has often misled careless readers in estimating the 
value of de Alva as a witness. He had, in fact, no greater 
facilities for obtaining information than Gage, except the 
oral and traditional records of his race, and none, perhaps, 
equal to ourselves, if we deny the fictive existence of the 
picture writings. So long as there was a restriction on 
discussion, and a rigid censorship of the press — or rather 
seven distinct censorships, § — these pretended picture re- 
cords were constantly appealed to, as authority for all 
sorts of historic fable. But, since the publication of 
Lord Kingsborough's faxi similes, this imposture has 
become patent to the world, as will be more fully shown 
in the following chapter. De Alva went a step further 
than the previous historians of Mexico, and alleged not 
only that he had consulted Tezcucan records, but even 
those more ancient still, that is, Toltec fragments which 
had escaped a pretended burning by one of the emperors 

* This is a compound of one-third logical society, gives the proper era — 

salt, muriate of soda ; one-third car- " the beginning of the seventeenth 

bonate of soda ; and one-third common century." — See Transactions, vol. I., 

earth. page 150. 

t Prescott, vol. I., page 206. | See Wilson's Mexico, page 128 ; 

% The Hon. Albert Gallatin, in the also note to page 247, in vol. VI. 

transactions of the American Ethno- Lord Kingsborough. 



60 



VALUE OF DE ALYA AS WITNESS. 



of Mexico, Ytzcoatl, sixty-two years before Montezuma.* 
But he does not explain how these strange witnesses, both 
Toltec and Tezcucan, disappeared. Like the plates of the 
Mormon Bible,-]- Mexican, Tezcucan, and Toltec picture 
writings disappear as soon as they are copied, and none 
but the initiated are permitted to see the originals ! 

The most delicate duty of the historian is to sift from 
these historical myths the grains of truth they may 
contain, and which are in danger of being lost in the 
mass of fable. There is a real, as well as a factitious, 
Tezcuco. But adobe, or dried mud, was probably the 



* The origin and history of the 
fabulous Aztec picture records may 
be briefly stated as follows : — The 
ambassadors sent to Cortez by Mon- 
tezuma probably made some rude 
marks on pieces of bark for aiding 
them, for they were only runners, 
in making a report to Montezuma. 
This Cortez probably noticed, and 
in his letters represented it, with 
his usual recklessness, as a species 
of writing. In the next generation 
after the conquest, when Mexico had 
become the absorbing subject of in- 
terest in Spain, on account of the 
discovery there of immense deposits 
of silver by the Spaniards, every- 
thing in relation to it became a mat- 
ter of interest to Europeans. Great 
inquiry was made for the relics of 
Aztec civilization, which now began 
to be considered a reality. Picture 
writings were first sought after, but 
none could be found. A few were 
manufactured, which were sold to 
strangers at a high price, as copies, 
and the disappearance of the balance 
was accounted for by the cunning 



churchman, Bishop Zumarraga — the 
inventor of the Miracle of the Virgin 
of Guadalupe — by alleging that he 
had burnt them. 

t Many years ago, within a few 
miles of the author's residence, in 
western New York, there lived one 
Joseph Smith, called, familiarly, Jo 
Smith. He was decidedly a low fel- 
low, and much addicted to " big 
yarns." He professed to have had 
a revelation, which led to the dis- 
covery of the golden plates of a book, 
which he facetiously called the Mor- 
mon Bible. These plates, as soon as 
copied, disappeared, and his own 
statement is all we have in proof 
that they ever existed ! This is the 
foundation of Mormonism. 

Still nearer our residence, three 
sisters, the Misses Fox, were troubled 
with apparitions and strange noises, 
which was the starting point of 
" spiritual rappings," and table mov- 
ings. The spirit that animated these 
people and their dupes was the same 
as that of Spanish devotees. 



FEDERATIVE SYSTEM. 61 



most costly building material ever used in that localit}^, 
until Cortez built there a small, rude chapel of stone. 
It is a spot admirably fitted for a village of Indian " salt 
rakers." That it must have been thus occupied from an 
extremely early period, is more than probable. The 
brackish waters of the lagitna, carried high upon the 
beach by the summer rains and westerly winds, sub- 
side with the return of winter ; leaving behind them an 
incrustation of tequisquita, which the natives gather and 
distribute through the interior as a substitute for salt. 
Some foreigners have here established a salt manufactory. 
There is, however, here a manufactory of glass ; so that 
Tezcuco must now be in a more flourishing condition, 
probably, than it ever was under its native chiefs — 
as they were then engaged in a continuous war with 
their immediate neighbors of Tlascala, for the last fifty 
years of their confederacy with Mexico. We now take 
leave of Fernando de Alva de Ixtlilxochitl, with the 
remark that an epithet, too common at Mexico, cannot 
with justice be applied to him — "he lies like a priest;" 
for if he does state what he knew to be untrue, he has 
done it far more elegantly than any of the priestly his- 
torians whose works we shall discuss in the following 
chapter. 

THE FEDERATIVE SYSTEM OF THE AZTECS AND OTHER INDIANS, 
AND THEIR LAW OF DESCENT. 

The glimmerings of truth in the ponderous folios of the 
monkish writers, are so indistinct as to render it diffi- 
cult to determine the exact relation Montezuma held to 



62 AZTEC SUCCESSION. 



his people. He is represented as exercising the incompa- 
tible offices both of sachem, or civil ruler, and war chief, 
and also as belonging, or having belonged, to the priest- 
hood, which doubtless means nothing more than that he 
was one of the " keepers of the faith ;" besides, perhaps, 
exercising the rare and ill defined office of prophet. To 
account for these anomalies, I assumed, in my preliminary 
work, that he or his predecessors had acquired this posi- 
tion by successful usurpation; which involved a funda- 
mental change of Indian polity, that is, — his position was 
one of force. 

His office, such as it was, is alleged to have passed, on 
his death, not to his son, but, according to the law regu- 
lating the descent of sachem, to his brother, Cuitlahua, 
and then to his nephew, Guatamozin. This succession, it 
is claimed, carried with it the office of war chief, which 
is not hereditary. Thus, surrounded by difficulties and 
contradictions, I have preferred to hold until further 
developments the common belief, rather than wander 
too far from the beaten track, on insufficient evidence. 
Throughout these volumes, Cuitlahua and Guatamozin 
are represented then, as in all other histories of the con- 
quest, to have been chiefs and leaders in the war against 
the Spaniards. Further investigations may change this 
opinion ; but in the meantime no injury can result from 
still considering them as emperors of Mexico. 

The Indian system of federation is blended with their 
peculiar law of tribal, or rather artificial family organiza- 
tion. So, too, is their law of descent, which distinguishes 
them from all other races. This organization may be 



TRIBAL DIVISIONS. 63 



enunciated as follows : — All Indian nations, so far as the 
inquiry has been carried, are divided into a certain num- 
ber of tribes or brotherhoods ; differing in number in dif- 
ferent confederations, but always the same in the nations 
of the same confederacy. Thus the nations composing 
the confederacy of the Iroquois were each divided into 
eight of these families, viz., the Hawk, the Heron, the 
Beaver, the Turtle, &c. The Creeks were divided into 
ten, the Ojibways into thirteen, the Delawares into three, 
&c. This accounts for the permanency of Indian con- 
federations : it was a peculiar application of the family 
organization. Among the Iroquois a Hawk of the Sene- 
cas considered himself a blood brother to the Hawks of 
the Oneidas ; so, too, the members of the Turtle, the 
Herons, and others. War could not arise among nations 
leagued together in this manner, without arraying bro- 
ther against brother ; that is. Hawk against Hawk, Tur- 
tle against Turtle, &c. An event almost impossible. 

The restriction it imposed upon marriage is the next 
most remarkable feature of this artificial family division 
of a whole confederacy. It was made as much an act of 
incest for one Hawk to marry another Hawk, or Snipe 
another Snipe, &c., as for a brother to marry his natural 
sister. There was no other legal restriction upon any 
member of the league marrying where his inclination led 
him. But his children, according to the law of descent 
in the female line, were not his, but his wife's. They 
belonged exclusively to her n tion, and to her brother- 
hood, and could never inherit either office or property 
from their father. This Indian law of descent seems 



64 EFFECT ON MARRIAGE. 



never to have been comprehended by Europeans.* They 
often express surprise that the son of Montezuma did not 
succeed his father instead of the brother, and nephew; 
never once dreaming there was a legal prohibition in the 
way of that succession. Mr. Prescott, in his unfamiliarity 
with Indian law, supposed this to have been caused by 
the illegitimacy of the son of Montezuma. 

Between brethren of the deceased and the sister's son, 
the right of inheritance was equal, and could only be 
determined by an election in council. The electors were 
the wise men [the elders] and matrons of the tribe, 
among whom the mother of the deceased exercised a 
predominant influence. Montezuma, it is evident from 
his badge, belonged to the Eagle family, and, from neces- 
sity, his successors were also Eagles. But his son, not 
being an Eagle, could not inherit. 

The land laws of the Indians were also pecuhar. All 
land belonged in common to the community, and was 
parcelled according to the wants of its families; or, 
rather, there being usually much more than was required 
for cultivation, every one took possession of as much as 
he, or rather she, required. This could not be sold. But 



* Since the above paragraph was ceased chief's sister in preference to 

written, the author has read in Dr. his own offspring. When dissatisfied 

Livingstone's account of his Sixteen with one candidate, they even go to a 

Years' Researches in Central Africa distant tribe for a successor, who is 

the following : — usually of the family of the late chief, 

" The government of the Bunjui is a brother or a sister's son, but never 

rather peculiar, being a sort of feudal his own son or daughter." — Living- 

republicanism. The chief is elected, stone's Researches (Harper's edition), 

and they choose the son of the de- page 660. 



SOCIAL ORGANIZATION. 65 



all improvements are individual property, which, in effect, 
ffives an indirect title to the land itself. 

o 

These fundamental laws of Indian society, seem to 
have entirely escaped the notice of all European authors, 
and were little known to American writers until fully 
elaborated by Lewis H. Morgan, Esq., and published in 
the " Proceedings of the American Society for the Advance- 
ment of Science, Eleventh Annual Repm't, part 2d, page 
132, Cambridge, Mass., 1858. 

The same authority informs us, that the law of descent 
among the Chippewas is in the male line, an exception to 
Indian law which seems to have been borrowed from the 
whites. He continues as follows : — 

" It is well known that the early Spanish writers upon 
the conquest are full of contradictory assertions, exaggera- 
tions, and fabulous statements. Very little reliance is to 
be placed upon them. On the other hand, the institu- 
tions of our Indian races are obscure and complicated ; 
and can only be worked out by careful and patient re- 
search, carried down to minute particulars. Those of the 
Iroquois were unknown, until within the last twenty years, 
although the Jesuit missionaries, and both French and 
English travellers, had written volumes upon their civil 
and domestic affairs. The real structure and principles 
of the league eluded their inquiries. Its general features, 
though well known, were so encumbered with errors that 
the knowledge was of little value. It would not be sur- 
prising if the same were true of the institutions of the 
Aztecs. 

" Now the institutions of all the aborigines of this con- 
5 



66 A COMMON TYPE. 



tinent, have a family cast [type]. They bear internal 
evidence of a common paternity, and point to a common 
origin, but remote, both as to time and place! They all 
sprang from a common mind, and, in their progressive 
development, have still retained the impress of their 
original elements, as is abundantly verified. The Aztecs 
were thoroughly and essentially Indian. We have 
glimpses here and there at original institutions, which 
suggest at once, by their similarity, kindred ones among 
the Iroquois and other Indian races of the present day. 
Their intellectual characteristics, and the predominant 
features of their social condition, are such as to leave no 
doubt upon this question ; and we believe the results of 
modern research, upon this point, concur with this con- 
clusion. Differences existed, it is true; but they were 
not radical. The Aztec civilization simply exhibits a 
more advanced development of those primary ideas of 
civil and social life, which were common to the whole 
Indian family, and not their overthrow by the substitu- 
tion of antao:onistic institutions. 

" Judging, then, from the institutional point of view, 
the Aztec monarchy, as described to us by current histories, 
will not bear the test of criticism. So far as the struc- 
ture of the government is concerned, a serious doubt rests 
upon the whole narrative. The testimony drawn from 
the very nature of true Indian institutions, denies that 
the Aztec government was a monarchy. Nay, it asserts 
that it is utterly impossible that it could have been a 
monarchical government. Venturesome as this statement 
may appear, it is yet proclaimed and vindicated by the 



MONARCHY DOUBTFUL. 67 



principles and structure of Indian society. If we could 
now break through the overlapping mass of fable and 
exaggeration, and bring to light the real institutions of 
the Aztecs, it would be found, there is every reason to 
believe, that their government was an hereditary oligar- 
chy, very similar to that of the Iroquois. That Monte- 
zuma, so far from being emperor of the Aztecs, was only 
one of a large number of sachems, who, equally, by their 
joint authority in council, administered the affairs of the 
commonwealth. As the leading sachem residing in the 
metropolitan city, he was first brought in contact with 
the Spaniards; and they, taking it for granted that he 
was the emperor, determined that he should be so, right 
or wrong. The splendor and power of the Aztec mon- 
archy, as set forth in their recitals, tended, in no inconsi- 
derable degree, to magnify their own exploits." Ihid. p. 
142. 

" This is, in reality, a condensed statement of the 
actual history of our Indian races. They have under- 
gone a process of repeated and continuous subdivisions 
from age to age, but counteracted here and there by con- 
federacies. We know that these confederacies have 
existed, and still exist, in places, all over this continent ; 
as witness, among others, the league of the Iroquois, the 
Powhatan confederacy in Virginia, the Sioux league of 
the seven council fires, and the alliance between the 
Aztecs, Tezcucans, and Tlacupans. But, on the other 
hand, we have never known of an Indian monarchy on 
any part of it, unless we accept the pretended Aztec 
monarchy. By the junction of several tribes into one 



68 LORD KINGSBOROUGH. 



nation, and several nations into a confederacy, the people 
are brought under the joint authority of the sachems of 
the several tribes, who, in general council, administer all 
such affairs as relate to the common welfare; leaving 
each tribe and nation to the particular government of its 
own sachems. Such a government was that of the Iro- 
quois ; and, substantially, without much doubt, the form 
of government which prevailed among the whole Indian 
family upon this continent." Ibid. p. 146.* 



Lord Kingsborough conferred a benefit upon the world he did not antici- 
pate, but none the less valuable on that account. As soon as the civil and 
ecclesiastical despotism of Spain ceased to give tone and color to its litera- 
ture, it became necessary to subject even its standard histories to the ordinary 
tests of criticism, to determine what was genuine, and what spurious ; since 
neither the sanction of a Superior, or of an Inquisitor, could longer give them 
currency. 

The whole of that magnificent myth — the chronology of the empire of 
Montezuma — rested solely upon the question of the genuineness of the picture 
writings. There was not a vestige of other evidence, except tradition, to sup- 
port it. The authors who appealed to these writings as their authority, were 
nearly all members of the demoralized priesthood of Spanish America, whose 
reputation for truth was at the lowest ebb. If these Mexican records were 
genuine, then there would be no stretch of credulity in giving credence to the 
statement of Fernando de Alva, that he had consulted Tezcucan and Toltec 
picture records. 

Having derived a great benefit from the labors of this superstitious lord, 
we can appreciate his lordship's sufferings and sacrifices in the cause of lite- 
rature, though from a difierent reason than the one that actuated him. An 

* There is one statement in the whereas they have, in fact, eighteen, 

foregoing chapter, on the authority This fact has been satisfactorily esta- 

quoted, which requires correction : — blished since the above chapter was 

" The Ojibways are divided into thir- vrritten. 
teeu tribes, or family divisions," 



LORD KINGSBOEOUGH. 69 



idea of the magnitude of his labors may be derived from the fact of his having 
employed de Aglio five consecutive years copying all the copies of these 
records to be found in the royal and princely libraries of Europe. He found 
none in Spain or in Mexico, for the same reason, perhaps, that the manu- 
facturers of the vrood of the true cross, or other ancient relics, are said not to 
reserve any of the precious article for their private use ! If vre add to this 
item of expense the engraving and printing of the whole mass, we may form 
some idea of the extent of his enterprise. This work is one that would have 
reflected the highest honor oh the greatest of Spanish monarchs. Yet kings 
neglected it. What kings neglected, the Irish lord, whose name heads this 
note, effected through love to literature and devotedness to superstition. 

Sincerely believing those monkish legends that make up the mass of Aztec 
history, he consecrated his time and the whole of his ample fortune to bring 
them before the world in an attractive form. He did not hesitate to believe 
the devil had played a part in Aztec history, nor fail to adopt the theory 
of their Jewish origin. He ransacked history, ancient and modern litera- 
ture, to support this favorite theory of monkish chroniclers. In like manner 
the histories of Mexico were ransacked, every monk's opinion, every vague 
rumor, and even monstrous improbabilities (such as the story of the Apostle 
Thomas preaching the gospel in the Anahuac), were greedily swallowed, when 
they appeared to add color to his argument. He seems to have been entirely 
ignorant of the common rules of evidence, and makes no distinction between 
that which is improbable and fictitious and that which is real. A conglome- 
rate of extracts, and notes without system or order, or reference to the pages 
and editions in which they can be found, constitutes the sixth volume of 
his ponderous work. The whole of his seventh volume is occupied with the 
work of Friar Suhagan. The fifth volume contains the translation into 
Spanish of the " picture writings ;" a portion of the work of Dupaix, and that 
part of Suhagan, which contains the prayers to the gods. The sixth volume 
has the balance of Dupaix. 

The reader of Lord Kingsborough is constantly annoyed by his want of sys- 
tem, and the continual mixing of the important with the trivial, yet he can- 
not fail to be struck with the child-like faith with which his lordship embraces 
the most absurd of Spanish superstitions. He objects to the inconsistency of 
Protestants in denying the efficacy of relics, when the Scriptures declare the 
bones of Elisha raised a dead man to life ! And he never suspected any of 
his readers would object to such proof as the following; by which, among 
other evidences derived from Boturnini, he establishes ih.Qfact! of the preach- 



70 THE author's visit to tezcuco. 



ing of the gospel by the Apostle Thomas in the Anahuac. " Many traces, 
however, of the holy feet of the said apostle have remained in New Spain."* 

From the four first volumes containing the " picture writings," the late 
Albert Gallatin drew the material for his labored scrutiny, and brought to 
light the important fact that the " picture writings" of any historic value 
were made thirty-two years after the conquest, while all others were merely 
fragmentary, of no ascertainable date, and no historic value.f That is to say, 
the "picture writings," to all appearance, wei'e part and parcel of the pious 
frauds perpetrated at Mexico, under the auspices of Bishop Zumarraga, to 
add glory to the Virgin Mary, and to gratify the national appetite of the 
Spaniards for " holy wars," which subject will be treated more at length 
hereafter. 

It would be wandering too far from the object of this note to enter here 
into the grave discussion of the merits of " picture writings." It is sufficient 
that the work of Lord Kingsborough has merits beyond those his lordship 
anticipated. But within the scope and intent of the author, it is about as 
valueless an expenditure of fortune as could well be devised. 

His Irish traits of character stick out at times most amusingly. He had 
learned, from his Saxon associations, the value of truth, and it never occurred 
to him that other nations might hold it in less estimation. He seems to have 
carried with him an idea that truth was an essential part of religion, and 
cannot understand how those who are evidently conscientious men can speak 
falsely. Boturnini's pretension to have once possessed a Toltec MS., taken 
from him by an English cruiser, he never seems to question. It is the same 
one which Don Fernando de Alva Ixtlilsochitl received from the kings of 
Tezcuco, his ancestors. He never thought of questioning the veracity of 
Boturnini, and with equal avidity gulps down the marvellous story of the 
painting that Boturnini in so wonderful a manner obtained from a cave, which 
fully and unequivocally established the mission of the Apostle Thomas to 
America ! Lord Kingsborough is the personification of Irish credulity and 
Irish bungling.J 

THE author's visit TO TEZCUCO. 

" It was the feast-day of the kings, los Reyes, when, after my return to 
Mexico, I was again in the saddle, riding out from Mexico toward the village 

* The mark of a foot on the rock is the antique " guide board." 
f Transactions of the Ameo'ican Ethnological Society, vol. I., pages 116, 145, 
146, 306. 

X Lord Kingsborough, vol. VI., page 245. 



THE author's visit TO TEZCUCO. 71 



of Tezcuco. I had to take a by-way, as the Guadalupe road was blocked 
up in consequence of the holiday. In doing so, I had to leap a ditch or 
canal, in which both rider and horse came near closing their pilgrimage 
in a quagmire; but in time we were again upon the road. It is a dreary 
place about that rock of Tepeyac, or Guadalupe, and if the Virgin had not 
smiled upon the barren spot and made roses grow out of it, it would be as 
uninviting as one of the hills of the valley of Sodom. This hill is now called 
the ' Mountain of Crosses,' for upon it, in 1810, the first insurgent, Hidalgo, 
the priest of Dolores, won a battle against the royal troops, which should 
have been followed up by an entry into Mexico; but Providence ordered it 
otherwise, and the forest of crosses, that once covered it, proclaimed a bloody 
slaughter without any results. 

" The shores of Tezcuco approach the hill in the wet season, leaving but a 
narrow margin for the road, but in the dry season this margin is greatly 
enlarged. I have already explained the composition of teqidsquita, and the 
manner of its production.; here it was lying in courses, or spots, as it had 
been left by the receding and drying up of the water during the dry season. 
Little piles of it had been gathered up here and there to be taken to town 
for use, probably by the ])akers or soapboilers, who are said to pay fourteen 
reals — shillings — an aroha for it. Besides a little stunted grass, there was 
here no sign of vegetable life except a peculiar species of the cactus family, 
which resembled a mammoth beet without leaves, but bearing upon its top 
an array of vegetable knives that surrounded a most exquisite scarlet flower. 

" There was another sight by the road side more in keeping with, the gloomy 
thoughts which this desert place excites : it was the dead bodies of three 
men, who had been condemned by a military commission for robbing a 
bishop. They were shot, and their bodies were placed on three gibbets 
as a warning to others. The bishop, it is said, would have pardoned the 
robbery ; but for their excessive depravity in searching vvithin his shirt of 
sackcloth for concealed doubloons ! This was more than a bishop could en- 
dure. The worthy ecclesiastic had renounced the world and all its vanities, 
and had put on the badges of poverty and self-mortification for $50,000 a 
year, and wore disguises that ought to have shielded him from the suspicion 
of being rich ! 

" These military commissions are no new invention in Mexico, for the 
famous Count de Galvez, the viceking who built the castle of Chapultepec 
and deposed an Archbishop of Mexico, had a travelling military court, with 
chaplain and all spiritual aids, to accompany the dragoons that scoured the 
road in search of robbers. "When a fellow was caught, court, chaplains, and 



72 THE author's visit to tezcuco. 



dragoons made rapid work in dismissing him to his long resting-place, and 
saying a cheap mass for the repose of his soul, and then again they were 
ready for another entei-prise. In this way the roads were made safe in the 
times of that viceroy. 

" Had I known the real distance to Tezcuco, I ought to have abandoned the 
journey on account of the lameness of my horse. But the miraculous 
Virgin, or, more probably, the extreme purity of the atmosphere on these 
elevated plains, had deprived me of the power of measuring distance by the 
eye. This is excessively annoying to a traveller. He sees the object he is 
attempting to approach at an apparently moderate distance, plain in sight, 
and as he rides along, hour after hour, there it stands, just where it seemed 
to be when he first got sight of it. I finally reached my destination in good 
time for a dinner, and for as good a night's 'entertainment for man and 
beast' as could be found in all the republic of Mexico. 

" When I turned the head of the lake, I was close upon the track which 
Cortez and his retreating band followed into the plains of Otumba. Poor 
wretches ! what a time they must have had of it in this disconsolate retreat — 
wounded, jaded, like tigers bereft of their prey! They mourned for their 
companions slain, but most of all for the booty they had lost. 

" They grieyed for those that went down in the cutter, 
And also for the biscuits and the butter :" 

And hobbled on, as best they could, while the natives pursued them with 
hootings and volleys of inefficient weapons. Passing this point and turning 
to the north-east, they entered the plains of Otumba, where they encountered 
the whole undisciplined host of the Aztecs, and scattered them like chaff 
before the wind. 

" Soon after I had passed the head of the lake and turned southward, I 
entered a cultivated country between tilled grounds and little mud villages 
along the road. These were the representatives of the magnificent cities 
enumerated by Cortez. That fine grove of cypresses which had been a land- 
mark all day was now close at hand, and I could form some idea of its great 
antiquity. But the day was passing away, and it was still uncertain whether 
safe quarters for the night could be found, where my horse, and the silver 
plates on his bridle, and the silver-mounted saddle, would be secure from 
robbers. 

" A good dinner and a clean bed could not have been found here a year 
earlier. But the new and enterprising firm of Escandon & Co., who now 
have the Real del Monte silver mines, had just completed a ' Casa Grand' 



THE author's visit TO TEZCUCO. 73 



* Grand House/ in connection with the salt manufacture, which they carry on 
here solely for the use of that single mine. It was a neat one-story residence 
of dried mud [adobe), and worthy the occupancy of the proudest king of 
Tezcuco. Though the flagging of the interior court was not all completed, 
yet the managing partner had taken possession, and it was fitted up according 
to the most approved style of an Anglo-Saxon residence. As horse and rider 
passed into the outer door, there stood ready a groom to lead the former into 
the inner court, where were the stables for the horses, and I entered the 
house to enjoy the unlooked-for pleasures of English hospitality in this out- 
of-the-way Indian village. 

" The resident partner was an Englishman. His connection with the Real 
del Monte Company extended only to the manufacture of salt. But even this 
was an extensive affair, and had already absorbed an investment of $100,000, 
in order to provide the salt used in only one branch of the process of refining 
silver at that mine. The gentleman was now absent, but his excellent English 
wife and her brother knew full well how to discharge the duties of host even 
to an unknown stranger. The dinner was of the best, and there was no lack 
of appetite after a hard day's ride on a trotting horse. So we all had the 
prime elements of enjoyment. Entertainment for man and beast is among 
the highest luxuries to be found by the wayside. It was an equal luxury to 
my hosts in their isolated residence to receive a visit from one whose only 
recommendation was that the English language was his native tongue, 

" It is doubtful if the Emperor of Tezcuco ever knew what it was, on a raw 
winter's evening, to sit before a bright wood fire, in a fireplace, with feet on 
fender and tongs in hand, listening to an animated conversation so mixed up 
of two languages that it was hard to tell which predominated. Not all the 
stateliness to be found in Mexican palaces, where, in lordly halls, men and 
women now sit and shiver over protracted dinners, can yield pleasures like those 
grouped around an English fireside. The evening was not half long enough 
to say all that was to be discussed. As we sat and chatted, and drank our 
tea with a gusto we had never known before, we forgot altogether that we 
were indulging in plebeian enjoyments upon the spot where an emperor's 
palace had probably stood. Instead of such plebeian things as a wood floor 
and Brussels carpet, his imperial majesty may have here squatted upon a 
mat, and dealt out justice or injustice, according to his caprice, to trembling 
crowds of dirty Indians, whose royal feathers made them princely. Dignity 
and majesty are truly parts of Indian character, but a good dinner and a 
clean bed are luxuries that an Indian, even though he were an emperor, 
never knew. 



74 THE author's visit to tezcuco. 



" My business here, and at Tezcuco, was to search for relics, and as soon as 
daylight appeared I was astir. But no relics could be found except some 
stone images so rudely cut as to be a burlesque upon Indian stone-cutting. 
There was an alleged sacrificial stone and a calendar stone built into the steps 
of the church of San Francisco, which were so badly done that the use to 
which they were said to have been applied could just be made out. Here, 
too, was a rude stone wall, built over the grave of Don Fernando, who had 
been converted to Christianity by Cortez ! There is also here one of those 
little chapels which indicate extremely limited means possessed by Cortez. 

" At the distance of a bow-shot from this is the site of the ' slip' (canal) 
which Cortez says he caused to be dug, twelve feet wide and twelve feet deep, 
in order to float his brigantines. Near by, the Indians were digging a new 
canal for the little steamboat which now plies on the laguna. When they 
reached a point less than three feet from the surface, they were stopped by 
the water. How could Cortez, under greater disadvantages, dig to the depth 
of twelve feet, without even iron shovels ? 

" I returned to the hacienda and inquired if there were no other relics. The 
proprietor assured me that' he had been unable to find any except the Indian 
mounds which he showed me, and some stone cellar steps that he had found 
in digging. And this is all that now remains of the great and magnificent 
city of Tezcuco, which had entered into alliance with Cortez, and which, for 
more than a hundred years after the conquest, was under the especial care 
of a superintendent sent from Spain, as an Indian reservation. 

" There are here eight Franciscan monks and a convent ; seven of these 
monks I was assured were living at home with their families and children ! 
but the eighth, who happened to be a cripple, lived in the convent. A 
major in the guard was pointed out, who, having committed a murder, took 
sanctuary in the church, where he remained several days, when — and we 
have his own word for it — the Virgin Mary appeared to him and freely 
forgave him. On this news getting abroad, there was great rejoicing in 
Tezcuco that the Virgin had at last visited them. From being stigmatized as 
a murderer, the object of this visit was almost adored as a saint, and became 
one of the principal men of the village, and was created a major in the new 
corps. 

" After I had surveyed the salt-works and the glass-works, I turned my 
horse's head toward Mexico by the road along the eastern shore, so that I 
made the complete circuit of Lake Tezcuco. 

"Thus far my visit to the royal city of Tezcuco had been perfectly suc- 
cessful ! The splendid high farming-lands extend from the shore to the 



THE author's visit TO TEZCUCO. 75 



foot of the mountain strikingly in contrast with the flatness and barren- 
ness of the plain on the west side, which is so slightly elevated above the 
level of the lake that a few inches of rise in the laguna spreads out an 
immense sheet of saline water, and yet there is not a solitary evaporating vat 
where there is an unlimited demand for the evaporated article at fourteen 
shillings the aroba. 

" Cortez speaks of the fine fields of corn on the east side of the lake. But 
they could not have been finer in his day than they are at present, though 
they furnished him with the supplies that supported his army. I reached 
the head of Tezcuco at noontide, where the heavy water of the salt lake was 
driving up toward the fresh water, as described by Cortez, but it was under 
the pressure of a strong north wind." — Wilson's Mexico and its Religion. 



CHAPTER II. 

SPANISH HISTORIANS AND SPANISH PICTURE WRITINGS. 

Historians of the conquest, 76* — Author's facilities for conducting an investi- 
gation, 77 — The result of the inquiry, 78 — Criticism necessary, 78 — The 
Spanish histories but parodies on the book of Joshua, 79 — Their histories 
divested of Moorish elements, 80 — The object of Cortez' letters, 80 — The 
effect of the emperor's favor on evidence, 81 — Romance and history inter- 
mingled, 82 — A Moorish character given to the Indians, 84 — The influence 
of the holy office on history, 86 — MS. histories, 87 — Indio-Spanish tradi- 
tional history, 88 — Burning of Aztec picture records fabulous, 90 — Picture 
writings Spanish, not Aztec, 90 — The discrepancies among historians, 92 — 
The difficulty of vrriting a history of the conquest, 93 — The verisimilitude 
of Spanish authors, 94 — Bernal Diaz de Castillo, 95 — Modern historians 
of the conquest, 97 — Boturnini, 98 — A specimen of his picture vrritings, 
101 — Veytia, 102 — Clavigero, 103 — Historians at Mexico, 104 — Alaman, 
104 — Bustamente and Lerdo de Tajede, 104 — Mr. Wm, H. Prescott, 104 — 
Robertson's History of America, 106 — Mr. L. H. Morgan's " League of the 
Iroquois" 106 — M. Dupaix, 107 — ^Alexander Von Humboldt, 107. 

One of the most important achievements in modern 
literature, is its separation of history from romance : a 
result effected by applying the common rules of evidence 
to all historical statements. To this ordeal the histories 
of most civilized countries have been subjected for cen- 
turies. Spain forms an exception to the statement — an 
exception which includes her two most important quon- 
dam colonies — Mexico and Peru. The combined spiritual 



* This chapter was written before ment. As the same result is reached 
the two preceding ; and before the by a different course of proof, it is by 
author was aware of the labors of the no means a repetition, 
Hon. Lewis Cass in the same departr 

(76) 



HISTORIES OF THE CONQUEST. 77 



and temporal despotism of those countries, for three hun- 
dred years, impeded, if it did not entirely prohibit, the 
progress of investigation. In our day, this despotism has 
been broken down ; and Spanish history is now before 
the same tribunal to which that of other countries has 
been subjected. But this purification has not, as yet, been 
applied to the chronicles of either Mexico or Peru. The 
Spanish holy wars have already been sifted of their 
fables, until nothing remains of those gorgeous histo- 
rical romances but their bleached and naked skeletons. 
But the holy war of New Spain — the conquest of Mexico 
by Cortez — continues the precise form and shape in which 
the monkish * historians fashioned it. Their writings, 
which should be styled a Romish theory of the conquest, 
still pass for its history, even among us ; and, on their 
authority, all Anglo-Saxon accounts of that event rest. 
These authors wrote under a permission from the Supe- 
riors of their respective orders, and published, if at all, 
under the license of seven distinct censors, two of whom 
were Inquisitors, yet are they constantly quoted as autho- 
rities, by modern inquirers into the conquest of Mexico. 
And on such unworthy warrant are founded the standard 
English and American versions. 

It was not the author's original design to call attention 
to the fabulous portion of these narratives. His plan 
was formed before he had discovered that they contained 



* The -writing of history, so far as vol. VI., page 265. The priests of 

it related to the New World, was, by New Spain (Mexico) were mostly 

the law of Spain, restricted to men in monks, 
priestly orders. — Lokd Kingsborough, 



78 THE author's inquiries. 



them. Not until after his second visit to the country, 
and a careful examination of the sites in which the events 
occurred, did he discover the real value of these historical 
romances. Then, too, it was that he concluded Monte- 
zuma's empire must have been similar to that of the 
Iroquois,* in the zenith of their prosperity .-j- He was 
aided in attaining these results by a partial knowledge of 
Indian character, previously acquired,! by several years 
of professional and ordinary intercourse with Spanish- 
Americans, and by his large acquaintance with the pecu- 
liarities of a country abounding in precious metals. § 

The discovery of a common flint arrow-head — an indis- 
pensable part of the usual weapons of a North Ame- 
rican Indian — upon the pyramidical mound of Cholula,I| 
first aroused suspicion, and set the author upon this inquiry 

* See Morgan's League of the Iro- the country that had belonged to the 

quois. Senecas, he there enjoyed a good op- 

f Morgan's Iroquois. portunity of studying Indian charac- 

X The author's knowledge of the ter. 
character of the North American In- § The author resided three years 

dians was acquired before he had gain- and a half in California after the dis- 

ed any preconceived notions from the covery of gold. 

writings of others. His father, who || Perhaps no incident can better 

had lived among the Iroquois, or Six illustrate the utter absurdity of our 

Nations, in the family of Joseph taking second hand from Europeans 

Brandt, their head, and went through our ideas of a North American In- 

the usual forms of adoption in place dian than the very one under consi- 

of an Indian who had died, gave him deration. 

his first lessons on Indian character ; The author's first suspicions of the 
and a taste so early acquired was civilization of the Indians of the table- 
followed up in after life. His ances- land was the discovery of this arrow- 
tors, for several generations, dwelt head, such a one as used to be plough- 
near the Indian agency at Cherry ed up by scores near the place where 
Valley, on " Wilson's Patent," though he was born. This was sufficient to eK- 
in Cooperstown village was he born, cit an inquiry — an inquiry which in- 
Removing early in life to a part of volved a careful examination of the 



NECESSITY OF A SCRUTINY. 79 



into the pretended civilization of Montezuma and his 
Aztecs. The investigation has resulted in his convic- 
tion that a large portion of the narrative of Cortez was 
designedly untrue, and written purposely to impose upon 
the emperor; and, further, that all the subsequent addi- 
tions to that author are pure fabrications. He was, more- 
over, led to believe that the narrative, bearing the name 
of Bernal Diaz,* was written for the purpose of sustain- 
ing other histories already needing a more ample founda- 
tion than that furnished by Cortez. It is probably no- 
thing more than the story of Gomora, with the absurdi- 
ties pointed out by Las Casas partially deducted. 

It will not do to denounce, in general terms, the vene- 
rable precedents so constantly quoted by our annalists. 
Their defects and their errors must be shown in detail, 
that the reader, as well as the author, may judge how 
much of the old folios are worthy of their repute, and how 
much must be rejected as monkish romance, or accounted 

physical evidences which the country seen, made of very hard flint, and of 

afforded — such is the effect produced the size represented in the drawing, 

on an American on seeing an arrow- Like our bayonets, it has three edges, 

head, and the end is formed into a shaft. 

On the other hand, the Indians of with the design of being fixed in the 

Tehuantepec havine brought to Du- socket of some pole or handle." — 

paix, the celebrated engineer of the Lord Kingsborough, vol. VI., page 

King of Spain, a very miserable spe- 468. 

cimen of a flint arrow or spear-head, * At the end of this chapter the 

he gives it a place among his drawings reader will find a summary of the 

of the remarkable curiosities of the author's opinion of the book of Ber- 

country, and discourses as follows in nal Diaz, or rather the book which 

relation to it :— " While I was prepar- bears that name ; also, in the progress 

ing to proceed thither, a military wea- of the work, the value of that autho- 

pon was brought to me which had been rity will from time to time be consi- 

found in those ruins. It is the barb dered. 
of a sort of dart such as I had never 



80 OBJECT OF CORTEZ' LETTERS. 



as the embellishments of a holy war — a sort of parody- 
on the book of Joshua. 

Montezuma was an Indian — not a Moor. Our first 
duty, therefore, is to divest his empire of the European 
and Moorish vesture with which it has been shrouded. 
In vindicating his character, and the Indian character of 
his Aztecs, it will be needful to notice the Spanish idea 
of history, when that of Mexico was written. It will also 
be necessary to examine the testimony upon which that 
rests. The physical improbabilities and impossibilities 
contained in the letters of Cortez,* have been already 
noted in a former publication jf as also the contradictory 
testimony of Cortez and Diaz, on one material point — 
the greatness of Tlascala. 

From his distant El Dorado, Cortez wrote without a 
competitor. His object was to obtain the favor of his 
emperor, and to shield himself and guilty companions 
from the consequences of their crimes. Without any fear 
of contradiction, he transferred to the New World such 
captivating pictures as the Arabians had drawn of a land 
of gold ; and gave them a local habitation. If the 
emperor proved a little incredulous, the remittance 



* Mr. George Folsom has executed Priests." The third edition is en- 

a most excellent translation, which titled " Mexico, Central America, and 

was published by Putnam, in 1843. California." The three are published 

It is better than the original. We by the Harpers. Where the first edi- 

always quote the most accessible edi- tion is cited, it will be understood to 

tions, for the convenience of readers, refer to any of the three editions. 

f " Mexico and its Religion," is the Where other editions are cited, it will 

title of the first and smallest edition, be understood as referring to the ad- 

The second edition, enlarged, has the ditional chapters. " Wilson's Mexico" 

title of " Mexico, its Peasants and its will be a common reference. 



EFFECT OF THE EMPEROR S FAVOR. 



81 



of 1900,000* in virgin gold to an exhausted treasury, 
dissipated every doubt, and completely effected his object. 
Thus gold, and fabulous pictures of the niagiiificence -of- 
the New Spain which he had added to the dominions 
of the emperor, atoned for the crime of levying war with- 
out a royal license. 

Upon the good pleasure of the emperor depended, also, 
the judgment of his subordinates. The imperial will was 
all powerful with the seven bodies,f lay and ecclesiasti- 
cal, that exer-cised the censorship in Spain. Imperial 
favor gained inquisitors, and presidents at once discovered, 
in the unsupported statements of Cortez, conclusive evi- 
dence of a new triumph of the cross over the infidels. It 
was vain to object to Cortez as a witness, or, if we add 
DictZ, as witnesses, that they were interested in magnifying 



* The records of the Treasury at 
Madrid establish this important fact, 
and show how small a sum of pre- 
cious metals could at that time pro- 
duce a sensation in the world. At 
any ordinary gold-washings, Cortez, 
with the aid of the Indians he could 
engage for a few trinkets, must 
have dug this amount in a very short 
time. The most successful gold dig- 
ging in California was accomplished 
by the aid of Indians, who did not 
know its value. 

t To the little work of Boturnini on 
Mexico there are appended, 1. The 
declaration of his faith in the Roman 
Catholic Church in the most unequi- 
vocal terms. 2. The license of the 
Jesuit father. 3. The license of an 
Inquisitor. 4. The license of the 
Judge of the Supreme Council of the 
6 



Indias. 5. The license of the Royal 
Council of the Indias. 6. The appro- 
bation of the " Qualificator" of the 
Inquisition, who was a barefooted 
Carmelite monk. 7. The license of 
the Royal Council of Castile. Beyond 
all this, the writer must be a person 
in holy orders, and of sufficient in- 
fluence to obtain the favorable notice 
of the bodies these persons represent- 
ed, and who were instinctively hostile 
to the diffusion of all information, 
particularly in regard to the New 
World. Nor was this the end of the 
difficulty ; the license of any one of 
these officials could be revoked at 
pleasure, and, when republished, the 
work had to be re-" visSd." — See 
Lord Kingsborough, vol. VI., page 
269. 



82 EFFECT OF THE EMPEROR's FAVOR. 



the empire * of Montezuma as equal to that of German}-, 
in order to enhance the grandeur of their exploits. Such 
suggestions disappeared at once before the sunshine of 
imperial favor, and disappeared for ever. Thus a tale, 
partly true, and partly invented, was incorporated with 
the history of Spam in an official statement. The suffi- 
ciency of the testimony to establish its truth, was deter- 
mined by its present advantages to Charles V. and those 
accruing to his successors. Nor was it inconsistent with 
the rules of evidence by which miracles were then proven 
to occur annually in Spain. This conquest of Mexico 
being a holy war, there was necessarily a succession of 
miracles — rather it was a continuous miracle; and no 
other or higher grade of evidence could be required than 
in the case of others. So judged both monks and. inqui- 
sitors ; and their judgment was then conclusive on such 
a point. The Anglo-Saxon idea of history requires not 
only exemption from all this spiritual and temporal cen- 
sorship, but likewise the broadest liberty of sifting truth 
from the various and often conflicting statements of con- 
temporaneous witnesses. A liberty incompatible with 
Spanish despotism. 

What freedom the Spanish historians enjoyed they 
held in common with the poets — that of dealing in the 
marvellous — of trifling continually with natural laws, by 
the intervention of the "ever blessed Virgin." This 
exemption from criticism exposed them, however, to the 
temptation of supplying their works with inventions in- 



* Folsom's Letters of Cortez, p. 38. 



ROMANCE AND HISTORY. 83 



stead of facts ; and led them to assume the gaudy colorino- 
of romance instead of the sober garb of truth, since it was 
more Hkely to attract the pubhc favor. Bj this course, 
too, a second object was attained — the church was con- 
ciliated by new attractions thrown around a holy war. 
Such are Spanish historians from a remote period. Of 
this kind of history Mr. Prescott has written, — " In short, 
the elements of truth and falsehood became so blended, 
that history was converted into romance, and romance 
received the credit due to history."* If we discard the 
Virgin and the saints from the Spanish chronicles, we 
have only a romance remaining — a captivating romance, 
indeed, but still only a romance founded upon history. 
The violations of natural law, involved in the adventures 
of these " Christian heroes," can only be made credible 
to those who believe in the miracle-working power of the 
saints. Take for instance those of Cortez in the valley 

* The fabulous ages of Greece are no more reason for believing in the 

scarcely more fabulous than the close real existence of Bernardo del Carpio, 

of the middle ages in Spanish history, of whom so much has been said and 

which compares very discreditably in sung, than in that of Charlemagne's 

this particular with similar periods Paladins, or the Knights of the Round 

in most European countries. The Table. Even the Cid, the national 

confusion of fact and fiction con- hero of Spain, is contended, by some 

tinues to a very late age; and as one of the shrewest native critics of our 

gropes his way through the twilight own times, to be an imaginary being ; 

of tradition he is at a loss whether and it is certain that the splendid 

the dim objects are men or shadows, fabric of his exploits, familiar as 

The most splendid names in Castilian household words to every Spaniard, 

annals — names incorporated with the has crumbled to pieces under the 

glorious achievements of the land, rude touch of modern criticism. Did 

and embalmed alike in the page of" these Spanish historians become any 

the chronicler, and the song of the more reliable by passing under the 

minstrel — names associated with the surveillance of the Inquisition, and 

most stirring patriotic recollections — becoming subservient to the interests 

are now found to have been the mere of the church ? — Prescott's Miscella- 

coinage of fancy. There seems to be nies, page 152. 



84 



ROMANCE AND HISTORY. 



of Mexico. There nearly every important statement, as 
given by the historians, involves the violation of a natu- 
ral law, and is in conflict with the most familiar principles 
of modern engineering.* 

Though Spaniards are now freed from the yoke of cen- 
turies, their taste for the unadulterated truth has to be 
cultivated. Historians must wait upon national taste, and 
feed sparingly an acquired appetite. Unvarnished truth 
can but gradually supplant monkish fables, and rigorous 
rules of evidence are only to be adopted when miracles 
cease to be of daily occurrence. This alone will suffi- 
ciently explain why Spain has neglected to scrutinize her 
history of the conquest of that land which has now be- 
come a foreign country. 

The passion for romance had not abated when the last 



* Having before me the surveys 
and the levels of the American army 
engineers, I have presumed to doubt 
that vrater ever ran up hill, that navi- 
gable canals were ever fed by "back- 
water," that pyramids {ieocalli) could 
rest on a foundation of soft earth, that 
a canal tvrelve feet broad by twelve 
feet deep, mostly belovf the water level, 
was ever dug by Indians with their 
rude implements, that gardens ever 
floated in mud, or that brigantines 
ever sailed in a salt-marsh, or even 
that 100,000 men ever entered the 
mud-built city of Mexico by a narrow 
causeway in the morning, and after 
fighting all day returned by the same 
path at night to their camp, or that 
so large a besieging army as 150,000 
men could be supported in a salt- 
marsh valley, surrounded by high 
mountains. 



In answer to the question why such 
fables have so long passed for history, 
I have the ready answer, that the 
Inquisition controlled every printing- 
office in Spain and her colonies, and 
its censors took good care that nothing 
should be printed against the ex- 
ploits of Cortez, whose banner was a 
Latin cross, and who had bestowed 
a large portion of his plunder on the 
church ; who had gratified the na- 
tional taste for holy wars by writing 
one of the finest of Spanish romances 
of history ; and had induced the Em- 
peror to overlook his crime by the 
bestowal of rich presents and rich 
provinces ; so that, by the favor of 
the Emperor and the favor of the 
Inquisition, a Jilibustero has come 
down to us as a Christian hero. — Pre- 
face to Wilson's Mexico and its Reli- 
gion. 



CORTEZ HIS OWN CHRONICLER. 85 



remnant of Moorish power in Spain was extinguished. 
Hence arose the necessity of seeking the infidels in a new 
and unexplored arena; and in the New World, North 
American Indians were made to play the part of Moors. 
The mantle of the Cid was thrown upon the shoulders of 
Cortez. This champion of the cross,* according to the pro- 
gramme, with a handful of Christian warriors, drives 
before him legions of unbelievers — Indian villages grow 
into Moorish cities, adorned with mosquesf and palaces. 
Montezuma becomes a Sultan, the lord of a Moorish 
palace. He is waited on by Moorish emirs ; he is served 
by Moorish slaves; and calculates time by a Persian 
calendar. Evidently Cortez was as familiar with the his- 
tory of the Cid as Cervantes was with that of Amadis de 
Gaul. Still that hero is inferior to ours in one respect. 
Other men have immortalized his adventures. Cortez has 
immortalized his own J — a rare exception to that rule 
which forbids a hero to be his own chronicler. In record- 
ing his achievements he is unfortunate — he confesses to the 
practice of falsehood, though only with the Indians ! The 
witness, Bernal Diaz, is deficient in good morals, § and 



* " As we carried the banner of the dinary, has fabricated and interwoven 

cross and fought for our faith," &c. — a romance with such verisimilitude 

Cortez' Letters, page 64. that he has astonished the world. 

t " I assure your majesty that 1 | " This was a good hint to us in 

have counted, from a mosque or tern- future, so that afterward, when we 

pie, 400 mosques and as many towers had captured any beautiful Indian 

— all which were of mosques in this females, we concealed them, aud gave 

city [Cholula]." — Qo^t-ez' Letters [Fol- out that they had escaped. As soon 

som's Translation, JSf. Y., 1843), page as it was come to the marking day, 

71. or, if any one of us stood in favor 

X Cortez, besides narrating his ad- with Cortez, he got them secretly 

ventures, which were truly extraor- marked [viz., branded with a red-hot 



86 INFLUENCE OF "THE HOLY OFFICE.' 



apocryphal. Besides the poetical license common to their 
country, we have then these two narrators to support a 
vast historic fabric ! Still, like the story of the Cid, it 
has served its purpose — it has had its day and its gene- 
ration — the church it has served well, and a despotic 
king best of all ! 

Besides the reasons already given for distrusting the 
correctness of Spanish statements, there is another, more 
secret in character, but not less potent than all combined — 
fear of incurring the displeasure of that tribunal which 
punished unbelief with fire, torture, and confiscation. 
A tribunal which regarded suspicion of heresy as an 
offence,* could hardly have sustained itself had it not ex- 
ercised a controlling influence in shaping the literature of 
the country. The fanatically religious character of Spain, 
during the Moorish wars, was kept up after the fuel on 
which it naturally fed was exhausted, by the terrors 
which the " Holy Office," the Inquisition, inspired. Hy- 
pocrisy then mingled with enthusiasm in the presence of 
the reUgious,-f while the " Holy Office" extended its labors 

iron] during the night-time, and paid exhibited such a picture of total de- 

a fifth of their value to him. In a pravity. — Wilson's Mexico. 

short time we possessed a great num- * After a trial protracted through 

ber of such slaves." — Bernal Diaz, eighteen years, the Archbishop of 

vol. I., pages 31 and 32. Toledo vras convicted, on appeal to 

Never was there a band of Anglo- Pius VII., of " being strongly sus- 

Saxon outlaws, cut-throats, pirates, or pected of heresy." His death soon 

buccaneers that reached the point of after followed, whether from natural 

human depravity at which they could causes or " by procurement" is of no 

brand, as cattle are branded, with a importance to our present discussion, 

red-hot iron, swarms of women taken f The religiovs is a general term 

by violence, in order that they might applied in Catholic countries to all 

not make any mistakes in recognising persons who have assumed religious 

their numberless wives ! None but vows. It is applied as well to nuns 

Spanish heroes of a " holy war" ever as to monks. 



MANUSCRIPT HISTORIES. 87 



from adjudicating men to be burned to the burning 
of manuscripts likewise.* 

There is a class of writers peculiar to Spain, whose 
works have exercised so great an influence upon its des- 
tinies, they must not be overlooked — those who have 
come down to us in manuscript. Thej are apparently 
of three degrees — the first composed of those not exactly 
incurring the displeasure of the " Holy Office," but not 
adjudged by it suitable to be licensed or printed — the 
second do not appear to have written for the press, but 
rather for the purpose of being read before the king, or 
to select circles of grandees; among whom these tomes 
appear to have been more highly prized than printed 
volumes. Of this class is Sarmiento's History of the 
Empire of the Peruvian Incas, which altogether surpasses 
that of Dr. Johnson's " Rasselas and the Happy Valley." 
In this Peruvian Empire of Sarmiento's creation, the 
despotism was so perfect that the private affairs of every 



* " The hymns of the ancient Mexi- to believe that the Inquisition would 

cans, which Sahagan translated into interfere in this way, before the work 

Spanish and inserted in the appendix had received the sanction of the head 

to the second book of his history of of the order. The Inquisition has 

New Spain, were destroyed by the enough to answer for without being 

order ofthe Inquisition, as a note to the made the stalking-horse for every 

original manuscript expressly states, offence against the moral law. 
Nor is it unlikely that the Phoenix Spanish historians abound in these 

of Siguenza perished in a pile lighted references to authorities, which they 

by the same hands." — Lord Kings- state got thus and thus destroyed. 

BOROUGH, vol. VI., page 533. They make doubtful statements, and 

I am inclined to think the above is then prove them by reference to au- 

one of the doubtful statements of Sa- thorities, which once existed, if we 

hagan. It is easier to believe that will credit them. Is this evidence ? — 

the historian invented the statement, Author. 
to add importance to his work, than 



88 SPANISH TRADITIONAL HISTORY. 



individual were regulated by authority. Yet every one 
was happy and contented ; though from the day he was 
born until the day he died none acted voluntarily.* No- 
thing could have been more grateful to the ears of a despot 
such as Philip II., than this contribution, which so forcibly 
illustrated the beauties of despotism. And most faithfully 
has it been preserved among the royal treasures of the 
Escurial. This manuscript, so unobjectionable however 
to those in authority, was never printed. But its author, 
as President of the Council of the Indias, took good care 
it should be the model of all subsequent narratives that 
obtained his license. The third class consisted of those 
displeasing to any one of the censors or officers of the 
Inquisition. 

There is another show of historic authority, also, con- 
stantly appealed to by Spanish authors to prove state- 
ments of doubtful credibility — tradition. The appearance 
of the Virgin of Guadalupe — the pious fraud of Zumar- 
raga — is an instance of the kind. The form of the 
miracle has entirely outgrown the limits of the early 
narratives, and now rests for its authority partly upon 
the relation given by Juan Diago, and partly upon tradi- 
tion. So with the histories of this Conquest, They rest 
partly upon the narrative of Cortez and the doubtful one of 
Diaz, and partly upon tradition — the latter an inexhaustible 
mine to which all can resort to prove the untrue or the 
impossible. The restrictions imposed upon discussion in 
Mexico, when under despotic rule, make these traditions, 

* Prescott's Peru, vol. I., page 114. 



SPANISH TRADITIONAL HISTORY. 89 



however, of no value as authority. They are the mere 
echoes of those who regulated public opinion — the monks. 
The most wonderful exploits of Cortez, or the most re- 
markable acts performed by the Virgin at Guadalupe, 
were duly communicated to the common people. With 
many marvellous additions, these became the staple of 
tradition. They passed from one to another, with embel- 
lishments, of course ; and none dared gainsay the story, 
or its new increase, on peril of conventual displeasure. 
"Where there is freedom, there is a reasonable ground to 
suppose the errors of tradition will be corrected. But in 
the city of Mexico the power of its priesthood was not 
destroyed until the present year f and still, by a curious 
coincidence, the Radical party are as much interested in 
sustaining the glory of the Empire of Montezuma as the 
priests themselves. The one that it may uphold the 
credit of the church, the other the renown of the ancient 
nationality. 

The two great traditionary events are the burning of 
the Toltec picture writing by the Mexican emperor, 
Ytzcoatl, sixty-two years before the reign of Monte- 
zuma, and that of the Aztec annals by Zumarraga-^ — 

* The power here referred to is the is a very common way of accounting 

indirect methods the clergy had of per- for the disappearance of papers ; even 

secuting obnoxious persons through the oft repeated story of the burning 

the moneyed power of the church, of the Alexandrian Library is dis- 

through vexatious accusations in the puted by Mohammedans with a fair 

church courts, &c. By the late de- show against its probability. 
cree Juerez the jurisdiction of the 

church courts in civil matters has " the burning of the library op 

been revoked. Alexandria. 

f This allegation of burning records " Many Christian writers, either on 



90 PICTURE WRITING SPANISH, NOT AZTEC. 



both of these most probably originated with Zumarraga 
himself — a cunning and artful man; wielding substan- 
tially all the power of the church. On secular affairs, 
even now, tradition in Mexico is the most unreliable 
authority a stranger can admit ; and, after a very little 
experience, he settles down upon the old maxim, to 
believe little he hears; and, following that closely, he 
will come off safest in the end. In religious matters 
tradition is even less worthy. 

We have already referred to that mad enthusiasm of 
an Irish lord,* upon the subject of the monkish theories 
of the Aztec origin, and the benefit he has conferred by 



account of their want of knowledge, 
or from an. unfounded prejudice 
against the true faith (except Gib- 
bon and other eminent authors), 
accuse our Caliph of the unpardon- 
able crime of having ordered the 
contents of the famous library that 
once adorned this city to be used as 
fuel for the five thousand baths which 
are said to have been here. In the 
first place they ought to have known 
that Mahommedan tenets teach all 
true believers to hold papers of all 
kinds sacred, and never to touch them, 
even with their feet, nor allow them 
to be thrown into an unclean place, 
as they may contain the name of the 
Almighty Allah — contrary to the cus- 
toms of the Christians of the present 
age, who have no regard even for 
their Bible, and would use its leaves, 
if damaged in any way, as useless 
papers. Secondly, it is quite absurd 
to think the same Caliph would com- 
mit such an act of insanity, who, on 
his visit to Jerusalem as a conqueror, 



ordered the great university there to 
be repaired at the public expense, and 
who would not say his prayers within 
the grand temple of that holy place, 
for fear of its being spoiled by his sol- 
diers following his example. Besides, 
the General Amru, who was a lover 
of science and literature, and a man 
gifted with poetical talent, would by 
no means make himself an instrument 
of such an act of irrational madness." 
— Autobiography of a Mohammedan 
Oentleman. 

One of the singular effects of Mo- 
hammedanism is the value it places 
on truth. In this respect Moslems 
compare favorably with the best of 
those Christians whose priests possess 
the dispensing power. 

* The main objects of Lord Kings- 
borough's monster work appear to be 
— 1st. To establish a Jewish origin for 
the Aztecs ; and 2d. The preaching 
to them of the gospel by the Apostle 
Thomas. 



PICTURE WRITING SPANISH, NOT AZTEC. 91 



publishing the much talked of, but never before scru- 
tinized, Mexican picture writing. It resulted from this 
publication, that these far-famed records were at once de- 
nounced as of Spanish and not of Aztec origin. They 
were not in truth originals, but purported to be their 
copies, made when such productions were in demand at 
remunerating prices. The late Albert Gallatin was the 
first to subject these picture records to a severe scrutiny, 
while at the same time he pointed out the discrepancies 
among the Spanish historians of the Aztec Empire. The 
results of his laborious investigations are contained in the 
first volume of the transactions of the American Ethno- 
logical Society. The two most valuable specimens of 
these records are duplicate copies, the one called the Codex 
Yaticanus, and the other the Codex Tellurianus.* Each 
follows the Spanish chronology ! The Vatican Codex, as 
appears from the text, is a copy by an Italian called 
Father Pietro, in the year 1556, about the date of the 
Virgin Mary's appearance at Guadalupe. Perhaps he ob- 
tained the originals as Zumarraga did her portrait. The 
proof in favor of the one is exactly the same as in the 
other — the statement of an interested party ! Until some 
evidence, or shadow of evidence, can be found that these 
quasi records are of Aztec origin, it would be useless to 
examine the contradictions, absurdities, and nonsense they 
present.f Unless some further light than the world at 



* Judging of the value of the his- posed. — How. Albert Gallatin in 

torical records which may have been Transactions, vol. I., page 145, of 

destroyed by those which have been American Ethnological Society. 

preserved, the loss is perhaps less to f On the two opposite sides of the 

be regretted than is generally sup- first hall we entered, of the Mexican 



92 DISCREPANCIES AMONG THE HISTORIANS. 



present possesses should be discovered, the whole story 
must be considered as one of Zumarraga's pious frauds. 

The same venerable ex-minister has also rendered an 
important service to literature by simply collating the 
standard Spanish authorities, when they give dates, for 
the occurrence of important historical events. Fifty and 
a hundred years are ordinary discrepancies with them.* 
No two agree in their relation of those said to have occur- 
red during the last hundred years prior to the advent of 
the Spaniards. These discrepancies are so glaring as to 
make the whole unworthy of credit. While none pro- 



Museum, I saw spread out the picto- 
rial chronology of two dynasties that 
had passed away — the viceregal line 
of potentates standing over against 
the royal line of Aztec emperors. 
The portraits of the vicekings, from 
Cortez down to the last of his succes- 
sors, stretch entirely across one side 
of the hall, and about the same num- 
ber of Indian cagiques are daubed 
upon a piece of papyrus that is 
fastened upon the opposite wall. It 
requires the greatest possible stretch 
of liberality for one accustomed to 
Indian efforts of this kind to dignify 
such intolerable daubs with the name 
of paintings. And yet this is the 
picture writing of the Aztecs, with 
which the world has been so edified 
for centuries. If there is or ever was 
an Iroquois Indian that should under- 
take to stain so miserably, I verily 
believe he would be expelled from his 
tribe. To make it manifest that this 
was intended for a chronological re- 
cord of the imperial line, black lines 
were daubed from one of these effigies 
to another. From a printed label in 



Spanish affixed to this wonderful 
relic, I learned that it was intended 
to represent the wanderings of the 
Aztecs from California. — Mexico and 
its Religion. 

* From a long table of the contra- 
dictions among the standard authors 
take the following items : — 



Mexicans leave Aztlan 
Mexicans arrive at Huel- 

colluacan 

Mexicans arrive at Cti- 

comoturic 

Mexicans arrive in the 

valley of Mexico . . 
Mexicans arrive at Cha- 

pultepeo 

Foundation of Mexico 



o . 




















B 


3 
> 


S'« 


UJ 








1064 






1168 


1141 




1229 




{ 


124S 




1275 


1260 




Vi-lb 



1168 



124S 
1325 



The variations in dates in the pic- 
ture writings are equal to these. — 
Transactions, vol. I., page 162. 

To complete the list of absurdities 
and contradictions, it must be borne 
in mind that the picture writings 
bring the history down to the years 
1555 and 1560 — nearly forty years 
after the conquest ! That the dates 



DIFFICULTIES TO BE ENCOUNTERED. 93 



duce the authorities on which their statements rest, it is 
impossible to confide in any. Evidently their tales are 
only the embodiment of vague Indian tradition inwoven 
with the speculations and inferences of the cloister. 
The whole case, as they present it, makes a very strong 
argument indeed against the Aztecs ever possessing his- 
toric records of any kind, or any accurate system of com- 
puting time. The story, that a class was set apart to 
preserve a record of important political events* as they 
occurred, like the other statements to which we have 
alluded, rests on air. Such is literature founded on the 
sanction of censors. 

Here would seem to be the proper place to sum up 
the difficulties to be encountered in an attempt to write a 
history, according to Anglo-Saxon ideas, of the Empire 



in the test are expressed in hierogly- ditional. Facts may be misunder- 

pliics not according to the Aztec, but stood, or misrepresented by contem- 

according to the Spanish, or Christian poraneous writers. But men who 

era ; that the Spanish pretended trans- keep a diary, priests charged with 

lation is evidently derived from some the care of recording facts as they 

other source than the picture records, occur, cannot be mistaken as to the 

Boturnini introduces a plate into dates of such plain and simple facts 

his collection that has broad Italian as the death of a king, and the acces- 

countenances. — See Ihid., passim. sion of his successor, which take place 

* If the difference of dates between in their own town, and under their 

the several authors, even for the events eyes. When therefore we find that 

which took place within one hundred no two authors agree in that respect, 

years before the Spanish conquest, and that the difference exceeds fifty, 

throws some doubts on the authenti- and occasionally one hundred, years ; 

city of the documents from which we may safely conclude that within 

they were derived, there can be no a few years after the conquest, there 

doubt with respect to more ancient did not exist a single original histori- 

times. It is evident that the accounts cal painting, in which events prior to 

given by the several authors are not the fifteeenth century were faithfully 

derived from any contemporaneous recorded under their proper date. — 

historical records, and are purely tra- Transactions, vol. I., page 164. 



94 VERISIMILITUDE OF SPANISH AUTHORS. 



of Mexico and of its conquest. The standard Spanish 
annalists are, at best, only monkish romancers, and while 
a Moorish coloring has been given by them to their record 
of events, the system of despotism then existing, precludes 
the idea of an unadorned history. Before the present 
generation, assertion could not, in Spain, be subjected to 
the scrutiny common to neighboring states. It depended 
for its value upon the good pleasure of those in power — 
so, the licensed history of the Aztecs before the con- 
quest, may be founded upon the gleanings of some vague 
Indian traditions, and may as well be, the inventions of 
the historians themselves. The simple existence of 
Aztec picture records is extremely problematical, and 
the events of the conquest have no other authority 
than the statements of a party or parties interested 
in magnifying their own exploits, while a sevenfold cen- 
sorship precluded exposure. To all this, add the stand- 
ard of truth is proverbially lower in Spain than in Anglo- 
Saxon countries. 

The cloud that rests upon every record of Mexican 
history has thus been frankly and fully stated, that the 
reader may not expect a series of captivating dramatic 
scenes, translated from Spanish folios; where, perhaps, 
they have lain buried among monkish speculations since 
the days of the Arabians. There is a verisimilitude in 
much of this quasi-history that would deceive, if it were 
possible, the very elect ; still we must not follow shadows. 
A striking feature in Spanish literature is the plausibiUty 
with which it has carried a fictitious narrative through its 
most minute details, completely captivating the unini- 



BERNAL DIAZ. 95 



tiated. If its supporters were not permitted to write truth, 
tliey succeeded in getting up a most excellent imitation. 
In Bernal Diaz the alleged individual affairs of private 
soldiers are so artfully interwoven with the general his- 
tory as to give the effect of truth to the whole. There 
being no fear of contradiction, this practice of inventing 
familiar details could be indulged in to any extent, 
w^hile the beauty and simplicity of such a style fixes 
at once the doubting. Step by step the reader is led 
along, absorbed in the perils that environ the hero of 
the history ! and, whether his genius, or the Virgin Mary, 
rescue him, the student at least experiences a great 
relief. He breathes decidedly easier, and yet, he has 
mistaken a romance for a history; and now, unwilling 
to break its charm, he dares not question its probability. 
This feeling influences all, and must be encountered by every 
author, who attempts to discard those venerable myths 
that for centuries have passed undoubted; and, besides, 
he must labor here and there, in books, in nature, in In- 
dian customs, and in personal observation, to gather the 
items, one by one, that are to be woven into an Anglo- 
American history of the Aztecs and the conquest of their 
kingdom. 

BERNAL DIAZ. 

The name that usually follows Cortez, when the conquest of Mexico is 
discussed, is that of Bernal Diaz de Castillo. We hear nothing of him until 
he appeared on the stage as an historian, or rather as a narrator of the 
events of the conquest — a witness to sustain historic tales fifty years after the 
war. The pretence for his appearance at so late a day, is to vindicate the 
claims of the companions of Cortez, for a share in the glory of the conquest. 



96 BERNAL DIAZ. 



The real cause was, doubtless, the urgent necessity to have a second witness 
to sustain the story, as well as to enlarge the scope of the narrative to the 
dimensions to which the historic fictions had swelled it. Perhaps, too, 
something had to be done to counteract the effect of Las Casas, while in favor 
with the emperor. 

But who was Bernal Diaz ? This would be a strange question to ask in a 
country where there was liberty of speech and liberty of the press, but in 
Spain the censorship was not only repressive, it was " suggestive." It not 
only suppressed the writings of authors, but compelled them to father sen- 
timents the very opposite of those they wished to publish. Take the case 
of poor Sahagan, who wrote what he claimed to be the Indian version of that 
event, but believed to have been a refutation of the histories of the con- 
quest. When his book was allowed to see the light, after a delay of many 
years, it was found that his alleged Indian account had been suppressed, 
and the regular Spanish one substituted. Las Casas, whose "Apology for 
the Indians"* occupied thirty-two years of his life, was allowed only to pub- 
lish that which treated of St. Domingo. But his refutation of the histories 
of the conquest of Mexico is wholly suppressed, his account terminating at 
the landing of Cortez at Vera Cruz. To have proved the Conquistadors 
buccaneers would have spoiled a Holy "War, which was just what the Inqui- 
sition would not allow. With such facts before us, it is safe to declare that 
not a single statement of fact that affected either the interests of the king or 
the church was ever published in Spain or her colonies during the three hun- 
dred years of the existence of the Inquisition ; but what was published was 
modified to suit the wishes of the censors, without any regard to the senti- 
ments of the putative author. 

Who then was Bernal Diaz ? How came he to be familiar with the writings 
of Las Casas that never saw the light ? Had he access to the secret archives 
of the convent ? He refers to the account of Las Casas as follows : — 

" These [the slaughters at Cholula] are, among others, those abominable 
monstrosities which the Bishop of Chiapas [Las Casas] can find no end in 
enumerating. But he is wrong when he asserts that we gave the Cholulans 
the above-mentioned chastisement without any provocation, and merely for 
pastime."* The history of Diaz is among the standard literary productions 
of that age, and is a very picture of candor and simplicity. On every page 
there are such evident efforts at verisimilitude as to raise a suspicion in the 
mind of those familiar with Spanish peculiarities that something more than 



* Lockhart's Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 207. 



BERNAL DIAZ. 9' 



a simple narrative was the object of writing this book fifty years after the 
conquest. By supposing the author only sixteen years old when he came to 
America, Lockhart makes him seventy years of age. But if we suppose him 
to have been of a reasonable age when he began his adventures, he must 
have been between eighty and ninety when this book is alleged to have been 
written. Gomora had overdone the matter in the superhuman achievements 
which he had ascribed to Cortez, while Las Casas had pointed out his incon- 
sistencies, and proved the conquerors cruel monsters. Something, then, 
had to be done to avert the odium that was beginning to attach to this cru- 
sade against the pretended infidels. In Spain, where a padlock was upon 
every man's mouth, and where each one buried his suspicions in the most 
secret recesses of his heart, and trembled lest, even in his dreams, a thought 
of impiety might reach the ear of a Familiar, history could always be made 
to conform to the interests of the church. 

Since the records of the Spanish Inquisition have become the property of 
the public, and the manner in which the facts of history were trifled with, is 
now understood, it is a question more easily asked than answered. Who wrote 
such and such a book ? 

Who, then, wrote the history of Bernal Diaz ? We have seen that it points 
out the monstrous exaggerations of Gomora, and cuts down those of Cortez 
more than half, yet the statements of Diaz are still incredible. It is a very 
religious book, as the Spaniards understand the word religion,* and reflects 
great credit on the church. On the evidence hereafter to be presented, we 
have with much deliberation concluded to denounce Bernal Diaz as a myth, 
though in this conclusion we differ decidedly from Mr. Prescott, who says : 
" Bernal Diaz, the untutored child of nature, is a most true and literal copyist 
of nature. He introduces us into the heart of the camp. All the picturesque 
scenes and romantic incidents of the campaign are reflected in his pages, as 
in a mirror. The lapse of fifty years had no power over the spirit of the 
veteran. The fire of youth glows in every line of his rude history." — Pres- 
cott, vol. II., p. 478. 

MODERN HISTORIANS OP THE CONQUEST. 

Repeating what we have already proved — that the statements of the early 
historians are irreconcilable with each other, and often, while self-contra- 
dictory, puerile, absurd, and impossible ; yet they all claim to rest upon 
picture records that have disappeared. To their authorities each one adds 

* Not godliness, but that kind of devotion which consists in externals. 
7 



98 MODERN HISTORIANS OF THE CONQUEST. 



statements, also, as of his own knowledge, which are impossible. At Mexico, 
Tezcuco, and throughout the country of the Aztecs, we find unmistakable 
relics of savage art. Every apparent exception can be accounted for, without 
admitting the Aztecs to have been a civilized people, though giving a fair value 
to all the evidence, or color of evidence, to be found at Mexico or anywhere 
else. Besides, we have ventured, too, to assert that these alleged histories were 
fabricated for the purpose of conferring glory on the Virgin and the Church ; 
the better to accomplish which, all vrritings in relation to the new world were 
confined to the priesthood. Such are the materials out of which the modern 
Spanish historians of the conquest have compiled their works. They can 
have no other possible authorities. The pretence that they have had any 
secret or other source of information, is a mere subterfuge, that has often 
misled our historians, and induced them to quote Boturnini, Clavigero, and 
others we shall presently notice, as authority. 

To write a history for American readers, the author must start from an 
American point of view, with some real knowledge of Indian character, and 
some knowledge, too, of the character of the Spaniards, and of their religious 
notions. Then he will be enabled to pick out a few truths from such doubtful 
writers, and that is all their value. 

M. DuPAix cannot be treated as we treat historians. He speaks from his 
personal observation as an engineer. His arguments are legitimate. His 
defect consists in an inability to discriminate between the products of civilized 
and savage art. In his notes he battles stoutly against the unbelief in Aztec 
civilization then prevalent at Mexico ; and not unfrequently cites savage art 
as evidence of Indian civilization. Where the two overlap each other, where 
hatchets of stone and tools of brass are found, he unwittingly confounds them. 
We shall speak of him when we are done with the historians. 

BOTURNINI. 

Chevalier Lorenzo Boturnini Benaduci, Royal Historiographer of the 
Indlas, is the author of " An Idea of a new General History of North Ame- 
rica," and of an unpublished volume, entitled a " New History of Mexico." 
He is the first of the modern historians, as a hundred years only has elapsed 
since he completed his historical labors, in the year 1749. 

As he is often quoted as an authority by Anglo-Saxon authors, it is neces- 
sary he should be noticed here. He was an Italian by birth, sent to Mexico 
in the year 1735, as the agent of the Countess Santibaney, one of the ten 
thousand pretended descendants of Montezuma. While at Mexico the active 
spirit of a devotee began to develop itself. He was overwhelmed with devo- 



BOTURNIlSri. 



99 



tion, on contemplating the transcendent miracle! of the appearance of the 
Immaculate Virgin at Guadalupe, and his whole soul was absorbed in gather- 
ing matei'ials to celebrate her praises. He was the prototype of Lord Kings- 
borough in superstition ; but a thousand-fold more intoxicated with the 
glorious condescension of the blessed Virgin and the saints. Having gathered 
all the materials relating to the miracles performed by the Virgin at Guada- 
lupe, and all the other materials relating to those of the conquest, he hastened 
to Rome in his hot zeal, and there obtained from the Pope a bull, autho- 
rizing the coronation of that miserable daub, " the miraculous picture of the 
Virgin," at Guadalupe.* 



* The Virgin of Guadalupe. 
— I learn from a proclamation of 
an archbishop of Mexico, that "the 
adoration of this holy image" [pic- 
ture] exists not only in Mexico, 
but in South America and Spain, 
and that it has propagated itself 
in Italy, Flanders, Germany, Aus- 
tria, Bohemia, Poland, Ireland, 
and Transylvania. I shall be ex- 
cused for giving the substance 
of this miraculous apparition, 
since it is now an article of be- 
lief of all good Romanists, having 
been proved before the Congrega- 
tion of Rites at Rome to have been 
a miraculous appearance of the 
Mother of God upon earth, in the 
year and at the place aforesaid. 
And the proclamation farther in- 
forms us that his holiness, Bene- 
dict XIV., was so fully persuaded 
of the truth of the tradition, that 
he made " cordial devotion to our 
Lady of Guadalupe, and conceded 
the proper mass and ritual of de- 
votion. He also made mention of 
it in the lesson of the second noctur- 
nal . . . ., declaring from the high 
throne of the Vatican that Mary, 
most holy, non fecit taliter omni 
nationi." 

Juan Diego had a sick father, and. 




THE VIRGIN OP GUADALUPE. 

like a good and pious son, he started 
for the medicine-man. He was stop- 
ped by the Virgin at the spot where 
the roundhouse on the extreme right 
of the picture is situated. She re- 
proached him with the slowness of the 
Indians in embracing the new reli- 
gion, and at the same time she an- 
nounced to him the important fact that 
she was to be the patron of the In- 
dians, and also charged him to go and 



100 



BOTURNINI. 



This last transcendent " act oi piety" betrayed him into difficulty. Either 
he neglected to obtain the sanction of the Council of the Indias, or that 
body, adjudging him to be a maniac or fool, had him cast into a 'prison at 
Mexico. This mishap proved the stepping-stone to royal favor. Being sent 
to Spain, he was taken from prison to become the historiographer of a half- 
witted king. In this office he had full scope for indulging his passion for 
superstition. 

Like all devotees, he possessed an abundance of zeal, and lacked only moral 
principle !* For, whether upon the banks of the Ganges, or at Mexico, 
whether in the service of Juggernaut, or of the Virgin, the effect is the same 
on the devotee ; he lacerates his body as an atonement for his sins — and 
becomes oblivious of moral obligations in the exact ratio of his fanaticism. I 
have yet to find a devotee, with rope and sandals and lacerated body, who is 
not " a 1 — r by instinct," and a scamp in practice. Yet, by a singular order of 
Providence, those of them most addicted to falsehood appear ordinarily the 
most credulous — they seem given up to strong delusions. 



report the same to Zumarraga [the 
pseudo-burner of Aztec records], who 
then enjoyed the lucrative office of 
Bishop of Mexico. Juan obeyed the 
heavenly messenger, but found him- 
self turned out of doors as a lying 
Indian. The second time he went for 
the medicine-man he took another 
path, but was again stopped on the 
way at the spot where the second 
roundhouse now stands. She now 
required him to go a second time to 
the bishop, and, in order to convince 
him of the truth of the story, she di- 
rected the Indian to climb to the top 
of the rock, where he would find a 
bunch of roses growing out of the 
smooth porphyry. The Indian did as 
he was commanded, and finding the 
roses in the place named, he gathered 
them in his tilma, and carried them 
to the bishop. The spot is marked by 
a small chapel. On opening his tilma 
before the bishop and a company of 
gentlemen assembled for that purpose, 
it was found that the roses had im- 



printed themselves around a very 
coarse picture of the Virgin. This is 
the story of the miraculous appear- 
ance of our Lady of Guadalupe. 

The bishop was hard to convince at 
first, but when he considered that the 
Indian could not himself paint, and 
had no money with which to pay an 
artist, and, above all, as there was a 
fair chance of making money by the 
transaction, he finally yielded to con- 
viction. — Wilson's Mexico. 

* The broad moral distinction that 
separates the non-idolatrous Christ- 
tians from their idolatrous brethren, 
seems to extend to the heathen, far 
beyond European influence — in the 
interior of Africa ; the heathen that 
are non-idolaters being altogether 
superior to the idolatrous. "But 
other incidents which happened sub- 
sequently showed, as well as this, 
that idolaters are not so virtuous as 
those who have no idols." — Living- 
stone's Africa, page 332. 



BOTURNINI. 



101 



Boturnini is the very personification of this sort of imposture and cre- 
dulity. At the city of Mexico, where there were no literary treasures, he 
pretends he gathered those, " he would not exchange for all the gold and 
silver, diamonds and pearls in the world," as he states in presenting a peti- 
tion to the Council of the Indias, for a redress of grievances ! He accounts 
for the loss of his pretended Toltec picture records, which would have 
established the visit of the Apostle Thomas to America, by alleging their 
capture by an English cruiser on their way to Spain ! His Italian, with a 




BOTTJRNINl'S FAC-SIMILE OF AZTEC PICTURE 'W^EITINGS. 



102 



VEYTIA. 



big wig and gown, in a little boat proves the existence of an Aztec tradition 
in relation to the flood, to the satisfaction of the learned! In the second line 
of the above picture writing, the man cutting a woman, or perhaps a sheep, 
with a knife, is offered as proof of human sacrifice ! The third is a disputed 
line. The monks insist that it exhibits the Indians leading victims to sacrifice. 
But Dupaix contends that such representations indicate a victory, and are 
emblematical of conquered provinces ! If only such contemptible-looking 
creatures were offered, as the ones represented in the picture, it might almost 
reconcile us to human sacrifices. But this is a question for the learned in 
hierographics ! 

VEYTIA. 

Next to Boturnini comes his intimate companion and literary executor, 
Veytia. He was a native of that city of priests, Puebla of the Angels ; a 
city more noted for its miracles, than for the virtue of its women, as Madame 
Calderon had occasion to learn to her great annoyance.* There, as in Italy, 



* Perhaps I could not present a 
more deplorable picture of the moral 
condition of the ladies of Puebla, who 
are celebrated for being so very de- 
vout, " but not very virtuous," than 
by copying the following from Ma- 
dame Calderon de la Barca's " Life in 
Mexico :" — 

" Yesterday (Sunday), a great day 
here for visiting after mass is over. 
We had a concourse of Spaniards, all 
of whom seemed anxious to know 
whether or not I intended to wear a 
Poblana dress at the fancy ball, and 
seemed wonderfully interested about 
it. Two young ladies or women of 

Puebla, introduced by Senor , 

came to proffer their services in giv- 
ing me all the necessary particulars, 
and dressed the hair of Josefa, a little 
Mexican girl, to show me how it 
should be arranged ; mentioned seve- 
ral things still wanting, and told me 
that every one was much pleased at 
the idea of my going in a Poblana 
dress. I was rather surprised that 



every one should trouble themselves 
about it. About twelve o'clock the 
president, in full uniform, attended 
by his aids-de-camp, paid me a visit, 
and sat about half an hour, very amia- 
ble as usual. Shortly after came more 
visits, and just as we had supposed 
they were all concluded, and we were 
going to dinner, we were told that the 
secretary of state, the ministers of 
war and of the interior, and others, 
were in the drawing-room. And what 
do you think was the purport of their 
visit? To adjure me by all that was 
most alarming, to discard the idea of 
making my appearance in a Poblana 
dress ! They assured us that Pob- 
lanas generally v^qtq femmes de rien, 
that they wore no stockings, and that 
the wife of the Spanish minister 
should by no means assume, even for 
one evening, such a costume. I 
brought in my dresses, showed their 
length and their propriety, but in 
vain ; and, in fact, as to their being 
in the right, there could be no doubt, 



CLAVIGERO. 



103 



the abundance of monks and priests detei-mines the character of the women. 
This author brings down the history of Boturnini to a period about seventy- 
five years before the conquest. He died somewhere near the year 1780. 

CLAVIGERO. 

We have already seen this author's chronology amounts to nothing, it 
is so utterly conflicting and contradictory. But, as he follows Veytia, in 
chronological order, and is looked upon as a standard by the learned ! we 
must notice his work — Antiqua Studia de Mejico. What facilities he had for 
acquiring knowledge, of the subjects on which he writes, does not appear. 
He was born at Vera Cruz in the year 1732. Being a member of the Order 
of Jesus, he was of course expelled from the country with its other members. 
In the year 1767 he took up his residence in Italy, where he devoted 
himself to illustrating the antiquities of a country of whose antiquities he 
knew nothing, though born in it. The manufactured antiquities of Mexico 



and nothing but a kind motive could 
have induced them to take this 
trouble ; so I yielded with a good 
grace, and thanked the cabinet coun- 
cil for their timely warning, though 
fearing that, in this land of procras- 
tination, it would be difficult to pro- 
cure another dress for the fancy ball. 

" They had scarcely gone, when 

Senor brought a message from 

several of the principal ladies here, 
whom we do not even know, and who 
had requested that, as a stranger, I 
should be informed of the reasons 
which rendered the Poblana dress 
objectionable in this country, espe- 
cially on any public occasion like this 
ball. I was really thankful for my 
escape. 

" Just as I was dressing for dinner, 
a note was brought, marked reservada 
(private), the contents of which ap- 
peared to me more odd than pleasant. 
I have since heard, however, that the 
writer, Don Jose Arnaiz, is an old 
man, and a sort of privileged charac- 
ter, who interferes in everything, 



whether it concerns him or not. I 
translate it for your benefit : — 

" The dress of a Poblana is that 
of a woman of no character. The 
lady of the Spanish minister is a lady 
in every sense of the word. However 
much she may have compromised 
herself, she ought neither to go as a 
Poblana, nor in any other character 
but her own. So says to the Senor de 

C n, Jos§ Arnaiz, who esteems 

him as much as possible." — " Life in 
Mexico." 

" If priests were angels, the town 
would be rightly named, for it is a 
city of priests and religious; men 
who have consecrated their lives to 
begging, and count it a merit with 
God to live on charity. Convents of 
male and female religious abound, 
and, as the books tell us, $40,000,000, 
in the form of mortgages upon the 
fairest lands of the Vega of Puebla, 
is consecrated to their support under 
the supervision of the bishop \" — 
Mexico and its Beligion. 



104 MR. PRESCOTT. 



had brought so good a price in foreign countries they had all been carried 
away nearly two hundred years before Clavigero was born. He makes a 
display of his knowledge of the grammars of the Indian languages, but long 
after those languages had dwindled into a contemptible mongrelism. He 
is introduced by Prescott, as one "who had made himself intimately ac- 
quainted with [Mexican] antiquities, by a careful examination of the paint- 
ings, &c." — so utterly ignorant are the most intelligent of our people in 
relation to the actual state of things at Mexico ! The only piece of 
picture writing remaining being apparently too valueless to find a foreign 
purchaser. 

HISTORIANS AT THE MEXICAN CONQUEST. DON LUCAS ALAMAN — 
DON CARLOS BUSTAMENTE. 

Since the independence, the priests' party, at Mexico, has furnished two 
distinguished literati, who have devoted their talents to illustrating the super- 
stitious portions of their country's history — Don Lucas Alaman and Doh 
Carlos Bustamente. The letter has written a voluminous history of the mira- 
culous apparition of the ever-blessed Virgin, at Guadalupe. Manuel M. Lerdo 
de Tajede, on the red-republican side, has written a volume — a history of Vera 
Cruz — in which he has followed Mr. Prescott, literally. These are all. 

MR. PRESCOTT. 

A more delicate duty remains — to speak freely of an American whose 
success in the field of literature has raised him to the highest rank. His 
talents have not only immortalized himself — they have added a new charm 
to the subject of his histories. He showed his faith by the expenditure of 
a fortune at the commencement of his enterprise, in the purchase of books 
and MSS. relating to " America of the Spaniards." These were the materials 
out of which he framed his two histories of the two aboriginal empires, 
Mexico and Peru. At the time these works were written he could not have 
had the remotest idea of the circumstances under which his Spanish autho- 
rities had been produced, or of the external pressure that gave them their 
peculiar form and character. He could hardly understand that peculiar organ- 
ization of Spanish society through which one set of opinions might be uni- 
formly expressed in public, while the intellectual classes in secret entertain 
entirely opposite ones. He acted throughout in the most perfect good faith ; 
and if, on a subsequent scrutiny, his authorities have proved to be the fabu- 
lous creations of Spanish- Arabian fancy, he is not in fault. They were the 
standards when he made use of them — a sufficient justification of his acts. 



EOBERTSON. 105 



" This beautiful world we inhabit," said an East Indian philosopher, " rests 
on the back of a mighty elephant ; the elephant stands on the back of a 
monster turtle ; the turtle rests upon a serpent ; and the serpent on nothing." 
Thus stand the literary monuments Mr. Prescott has constructed. They are 
castles resting upon a cloud which reflects an eastern sunrise upon a west- 
ern horizon, 

Robertson's history op America. 

Dr. Robertson, principal of the University [High School] of Edinburgh, 
has immortalized himself by informing the world that the Iroquois [the Six 
Nations of New York], eat human flesh.* As the writer of this note is an 
Iroquois (not in blood, it is true, but by the adoption of an ancestor), he is 
bound by the customs of his tribe — Is he too a cannibal? Such is the unmi- 
tigated nonsense with which the most learned men of Europe tarnish their 
volumes, when they write about American Indians. They are so profoundly 
ignorant of their real character, they are unable to sift fabulous statements 
from those which are true. Hence they put them all together, and then 
exhaust themselves in profound reflections upon Indian customs, existing 
only in the imagination of inventors of marvels. How few can believe the 
world has been deluded by monkish fables palmed oS" as Aztec history! 
But here is a Scotch historian — who could have had access to the records of 
the war and colonial offices at London — gravely informing the world, that a 
people most advanced of all American Indians, allies, too, of the British crown 
for two hundred years, were cannibals ! taking as his authority a Jesuitical 
author, instead of applying to the proper department of his own government 
for information. It is not true that American Indians eat human flesh, 
except under those extreme circumstances, when white men do the same.f 

* Robertson (Harper's edition), tionary mob of Madrid. So monstrous 

page 172, book IV. It can be found an act of atrocity may be questioned. 

in any edition, by referring back from But it is done by Indians when infu- 

note (71). " Let us go and eat that riated, and in the midst of slaugh- 

nation," &c., is the figurative Ian- ter, so rare, however, as to excite the 

guage of Indians for going to war. greatest horror among the Indians 

f Besides the inducement of ex- themselves ; the very purpose for 
treme hunger, there is another, very which it was perpetrated. Wilkinson 
rare indeed among Indians, as well as speaks of the injustice of the Greeks 
whites — ^it is, as an act of vengeance, in charging the Egyptians with can- 
Barrow, in his " Bible in Spain," nibalism ; construing their figurative 
mentions an instance of seeing a hu- language literally. No less injustice 
man hand, drawn exultingly from his is done to the Indians, 
bowl of soup by one of the revolu- 



106 MORGAN. 

This historian and Presbyterian minister was consecrated to preach doc- 
trines that seem never to have touched his ovrn heart. His sympathy for 
that burlesque of godliness, exhibited by the enemies of his faith, makes such 
an idea improbable. He did not discriminate between the self-vighteonsness 
of the bodily torturing devotee, and the humble faith of the true believer, 
nor perceive that these tvfo characters differ as essentially, as the morbid 
sympathizer with fabulous suffering does from the real philanthropist — the 
very fountains of the heart being dried up in the one, while in the other they 
are daily expanding. He was captivated by the convent life of abstinence 
and bodily mortification attributed to Charles V. Without stopping to 
inquire into its truth, he makes it the theme of one of his most brilliant 
rhapsodies. But lo ! when the secrets of the convent were at last revealed, 
the records proved the ex-emperor passed his time in gluttonous feasting, 
and in financiering for his son. 

He is equally unfortunate in his eloquent paragraphs on the supposed 
voluntary stranding of Cortez' ships ; a little investigation showing that that 
famous captain had brought his vessels into such a position, on a tideless lee 
shore, as to expose them to destruction from the first "white squall" that should 
thereafter occur, and where, from the nature of the coast and the character 
of the winds, it was hardly possible he could have stranded them voluntarily. 

He has devoted his finest efforts to subjects that had only a fabulous exist- 
ence, thus exposing himself to ridicule in the fondness he exhibits for the vin- 
dictive enemies of his own faith. He may not have read the letter of Charles 
to his daughter Joanna — written in his last hours — urging her to induce the 
Spanish Protestants to recant, and then to commit them to the flames. But 
he knew enough of the emperor's real character to make him an unfit subject 
for the eulogiums of a Presbyterian minister. 

Such are the inconsistencies of this writer of elegant periods, designed to 
pass for history. Not only does he accuse the Iroquois of cannibalism, at 
the very time they were petitioning the sovereign of England for chaplains, 
but holds up to Protestant admiration the chief persecutor of his own 
brethren. In the figurative language of the Indians : He ate the flesh and 
drank the blood of his brothers ; and roasted them in the fire — for when he 
praised the enemy that did these things, he did them himself. We shall 
notice him hereafter. 

LEWIS H. MORGAN, ESQ., OF ROCHESTER, N. Y. 

This is the only author, so far as the writer of this note is awai-e, who has 
correctly portrayed aboriginal character. But his history, "The League of 



HUMBOLDT. 107 



the Iroquois," had only a limited success. How could it have been other- 
wise ? He did not follow Robertson 1 He did not derive his information from 
European sources, but simply from the Indians themselves, among whom he 
lived and moved ! This was enough to insure his condemnation. The lite- 
rary merits of his book are of a high order, and the character and standing 
of the author such as to give weight to his statements. But all this amounts 
to nothing — he presumed to tell the truth in spite of historic authorities! 
For this the literary world could not forgive him. 

EXPLORERS. M. DUPAIX. 

When men could at length breathe freely under the liberal administration 
of Charles III., they began to express their disbelief in the Aztec empire 
of the monkish historians. In the time of Dupaix, the disbelief amounted 
to a public opinion, as is evident from his manner of contending with it. The 
same unbelief of intelligent Spaniards is thus expressed in the language of 
Robertson (note 154), on the authority of persons long resident in New 
Spain, and who have visited every part of it, — " There is not in all the 
extent of that vast empire a single monument or vestige of any building 
more ancient than the conquest," — a statement strictly true, if we except the 
Phoenician remains of the south country, which in some places extended over 
the border, and into the limits of New Spain. In this condition of public 
sentiment at Mexico, the King of Spain directed M. Dupaix, a captain of 
royal engineers, to make an exploration of the country in search of ancient 
monuments of the Aztec empire. The result of that exploration was em- 
braced in Castanada's drawings and accompanying notes of Dupaix, which 
are transcribed into the fourth and sixth volumes of Lord Kingsborough. 

Dupaix was utterly unfit to make this reconnoissance — as we stated in a 
former note — from his ignorance of Indian character, and his inability to 
distinguish the products of savage art from those of the extinguished race of 
the southern provinces, when the one chanced to overlap the other, as in the 
case of the Indian arrow-heads found in the ruins of Mitlan : he even attri- 
butes the Spanish causeways of the valley of Mexico to the Aztecs ; confound- 
ing a carriage way across the marsh with the ancient Indian footpaths. 
With much enthusiasm, and great learning in his art, he arrives at conclu- 
sions exactly opposite to those which his facts justify, viz., that the Aztec 
empire was composed of civilized people. 

BARON ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 
It is a delicate duty to criticise a philosopher. Within his proper sphere it 



108 HUMBOLDT. 



would be little less than madness. He was the first Protestant traveller 
ever admitted to visit freely the American dominions of the King of Spain. 
But a philosopher, even, may err, when he attempts to account philosophi- 
cally for the mud-gardens floating in the valley of Mexico, in spite of the laws 
of gravity and capillary attraction. 

Humboldt was too busy with his philosophy to play the critic, nor were the 
means which we now enjoy for doing so accessible. He took for granted the 
historic fables, and, like Robertson, speculated upon the consequences of In- 
dians eating human flesh ! His opinions, like those of other great men, are 
good for nothing on subjects he has not investigated. He had no reverence 
for monks, and made them the butt of his keenest irony. Still he assumed 
their books and MSS. to be true, and philosophized upon their contents. The 
only defect in his work is, that he started from false premises, and of course 
his conclusions amount to nothing. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE COUNTRY OF THE AZTECS — THE TABLE-LAND OF AMERICA. 

Its mountain scenery, 109 — A country of silver, 112 — An isolated country, 
112 — A tornado, 113 — The way to the interior, 115 — A tropical shore, 116 
— A country in the clouds, 116 — Crossing the plateau, 117 — The vegetation 
and climate changing, 118 — A view of all the vegetable kingdoms, 119 — 
The century plant, 120— Morning twilight, 121— The desert, 122— The 
country of the table-land, 123 — The Aztec foreign policy, 123 — The Aztec 
dominion to the Pacific, 124 — The south-east Aztec provinces, 125 — Aca- 
pulco, 125. 

The advantage of studying physically, reading as it 
were, the country that is the subject of discussion, will 
justify us in turning aside a little to contemplate nature, 
in the extraordinary development that it presents in 
Mexico. A vast table-land, higher than the tops of 
our mountains, stretches nearly from ocean to ocean. 
Stripped of its timber by Spanish recklessness, it now pre- 
sents to the eye of the traveller a naked plain ; broken 
only by isolated peaks, rising high above the level that, 
even in the tropics, marks the limit of human habita- 
tion. Snow and ice are there frequently to be seen among 
the primitive rocks, apparently as unaltered by the lapse 
of time, and as undisturbed by the sun and storms of 
centuries, as the adamant on which they rest. In some 
places difficult of access, immense trees, hoary with age, 
flourish as they flourished before the white man's axe 

(109) 



110 



MOUNTAIN SCENERY. 



disturbed their quiet. Others dwarfed, yet old, the pig- 
mies of the forest, occupy the uttermost limits of vegeta- 
tion. Through these scattered woodlands stretch down- 
w^ard long lines of ice and snow ; like the gray locks of 
some venerable Titan. The mountain masses are but 
empty caldrons, where in ages past boiled and simmered 
those elements, which in their fiery crucibles became 
"primitive rocks, pumice, and scoria," according to the 
mysterious workings of nature's laws. Now, as though 
the genial influence of fire had never been felt there, all 
is bleak, chill, and ice-bound, within and without* those 



* " We climbed on, having reached 
the basaltic rock at an elevation of 
16,805 feet, and vrith exhausting labor 
we travelled upon it until toward even- 
ing, when we came to that immense 
yawning abyss, the crater. The mouth 
was about three miles in circumfer- 
ence, of a very irregular form. Into 
this we entered, and soon arrived at 
the house which was to be our lodging 
for the night. 

" Morning came to our relief, and 
with it the film had passed from our 
eyes. We looked up to the top of the 
mountain above us, and then down 
into that fearful abyss into which we 
were soon to descend. We could eat 
no breakfast, and could drink no coffee, 
and so we were soon ready for our day's 
journey. We followed a narrow foot- 
path until we reached a shelf, whei-e 
we were seated in a skid, and let down 
by a windlass 500 feet or so, to a land- 
ing-place, from which we clambered 
downward to a second windlass and a 
second skid, which was the most fear- 
ful of all, because we were dangling 
about without anything to steady our- 



selves, as we descended before the 
mouth of one of those yawning cav- 
erns, which are called the ' breathing- 
holes' of the crater. They are so called 
from the fresh air and horrid sounds 
that continually issue from them. But 
we shut our eyes and clung fast to the 
rope, as we whirled round and round 
in mid aiv, until we reached another 
landing-place. From this point we 
clambered down, as best we could, un- 
til we came among the men digging up 
cinders, from which sulphur, in the 
form of brimstone, is made. 

" We took no measurements within 
the crater, and heights and distances 
here can only be given by approxima- 
tion. We only know that all things 
are on a scale so vast that old Pluto 
might here have forged new thunder- 
bolts, and Milton's Satan might here 
have found the material for his sulphu- 
rous bed. All was strange, and wild, 
and frightful. 

" We crawled into several of the 
' breathing-holes,' but nothing was 
there except darkness visible. The 
sides and bottom were, for the most 



MOUNTAIN SCENERY. 



Ill 



temporary forges, where nature once combined the mate- 
rials composing the earth's crust. Whether the comple- 
tion of her labors, or the exhaustion of fuel, extin- 
guished- this cluster of mountain-fires, the wit of man 
will never perhaps determine. They burned fiercely 
once, they are quiet now; and this is all we can say. 
They tell us nothing in relation to those causes, that 



part, polished by the molten mass, 
which had cooled in passing through 
them ; and if it had not been for the 
ropes around our waist, we should 
have slipped and fallen we knew not 
whither. We almost fancied that, in 
the moving currents of air, we heard 
the wailings of the damned in the great 
sulphurous lake below. The stones 
we threw in were lost to sound unless 
they hit upon a projecting rock, and 
fell from shelf to shelf. The deep dark- 
ness was fearful to contemplate. The 
abyss looked as though it might be the 
mouth of the bottomless pit. What 
must have been the effect when each 
one of these ' breathing-holes' was 
vomiting up liquid fire and sulphur 
into the basi n in which we stood ? How 
immeasurable must be that lake whose 
overflowings fill such cavities as this ! 
It is when standing in such a place 
that we get the full force of the figures 
used in Scripture in illustrating the 
condition of the souls that have 
perished for ever. 

" We are at the top once more ; and 
now that our eyesight, which we lost 
in climbing the mountain, is restored 
to us, we will take a view of the lower 
world. Looking toward the west, every 
object glows in the brightness of the 
rising sun, except where the mountain 
casts its vast shadow even across the 
valley of Toluca. How strangely 



diminished now are all familiar objects 
that are visible ! The pureness of the 
medium through which things are seen 
presents distant objects with great dis- 
tinctness, but it will not present them 
in their natural size, for it cannot 
change the angle of vision. The vil- 
lages upon the table-land were appar- 
ently pigmy villages, inhabited by 
pigmy men and pigmy women, sur- 
rounded with pigmy cattle, and garri- 
soned by pigmy soldiery. It is, by an 
optical illusion, Lilliput in real life. 
Had the English satirist placed him- 
self where Ave now stood, he would 
have more than realized the picture 
which his fancy painted. He might 
have seen the marshalled hosts of Lil- 
liput marching to the beat of drum, 
in the proud array of war. 

" If you wish to see all the sights, 
you must walk around the mountain, 
and look down its steepest side, where 
there is no table-land, into the 'hot 
country.' The distance is so vast, the 
descent so steep, that an inexperienced 
climber suffers from dizziness. If you 
climb to the very summit, 250 feet 
above the mouth of the crater, you 
will find more surface about you. But 
it is a point where few can desire to 
remain long, or to visit it a second 
time." — Frank Kelloti's statement in 
Wilson's Mexico. 



112 A COUNTRY OF SILVER. 



geologists insist are still at work in the bowels of our 
mother earth. 

The country of the Aztecs abounds in mines of silver. 
But their discovery is of European origin. In the past, 
before the evening and the morning had begun to measure 
time, nature had rent and torn the porphyritic rocks asun- 
der, and thrust up through their open seams those veins, 
which have since been wrought so deep into the bowels of 
the earth ;* and from which an average of twenty-six mil- 
lionsf of pure metal has been annually exported. The 
Indians once washed gold, it is believed, from the heavy 
clay of the channels, or in the eddies along the shores 
of the rivulets of the low country. But their conquest 
and enslavement effectually killed the goose that laid the 
golden egg ; for though gold washing may yield a profit 
to individual labor — as it is found native, and not wrought 
out, like silver, from the ore — still, with the loss of liberty, 
its search would necessarily cease. The distinction be- 
tween these metals in their native state, was well under- 
stood in the most remote antiquity; for Job declares, 
" There is a vein for silver and a place for gold, w^here 
they find it." 

Nature, it would appear, intended to isolate the country 
of the Aztecs from the rest of the world, though placing 
it between two oceans. On the Pacific side, she shut it 
in by a succession of mountain ridges. Its northern or 
Atlantic border she bounded with an iron wall rising ten 

* In the notes to another part of this could not have been much less from 

volume, the depth and magnitude of the first opening of the mines, if we 

the silver shafts will be stated. make allowance for smuggling. 

fThis is the present product. It 



A TORNADO. 113 



thousand feet above the sea, and with a narrow strip of 
low shore, to which pestilence and malaria forbade ap- 
proach. Upon that belt also she concentrated the fury of 
every tempest that sweeps the Gulf of Mexico. Such 
are the obstacles she interposed to intercourse with the 
rest of mankind. But the passion for gold, and the trade 
in silver, has triumphed over all. Merchants inhabit, 
and ships constantly visit, at all times, a pestilential port, 
without a harbor, or even good holding-ground ; and that, 
too, though exposed alternately to the vomito^ or the fear- 
ful tornado called the Norte. 

The author once witnessed a visitation of the latter in its 
utmost fury. The port was filled with shipping, when a 
well known monitor, the sinking of the atmosphere upon 
the mountain northward, foretold the impending danger. 
A crowd gathered upon the shore, from that attraction of 
mutual sympathy so keenly felt towards men in immi- 
nent peril. All looked intently at the heavens, as they 
gathered black, and saw far off on the horizon the clouds 
and waves mingled together in one great vaporous mass. 
Now and then were brief intervals of bright skies; 
again to be quickly overcast, and shrouded by a more 
intense darkness, while the temperature fell to a degree 
of chilliness unusual in the '' hot country." The howling 
of the wind was terrific. The crowd was near enough 
to see, or at least to catch glimpses of the shipping. 
Every extra anchor that could be got at was soon thrown 
out. But to little purpose : a coral bottom is but poor 
holding-ground in a Norther ; and one by one the fleets 



114 



A TORNADO. 




SAN JUAN DE ULT7A. 



began to drag ; even the castle, San Juan de Uluaf' 
itself, seemed at times as though it would be torn from its 
rocky foundations and dashed upon the town. The terror 
of those on land was hardly to be described, as they saw 
the apparent destruction of both vessels and crews so 
nigh. Now and then one would hold a little by some 
new obstacle the anchor caught, but the resistance giving 
way, it soon moved again, approaching the shore, to which 
all tended, excepting those sheltered under the lee of the 
castle and island. They did not all drag at once, or 
together, but one by one, as their powers of endurance 
gave out ; and one by one they drove toward the beach 
with little of help, or hope, if the storm continued. Even 



■*This famous castle, vrhich stands fact, its only present practical advan- 

upontheislandof Ulua, isnowfast go- tage is derived from the light-house 

ing to decay. As a fortification it is no which stands upon one of its towers. — 

longer of great value, although it is Esterior Comercio de Mexico. M. M. 

computed that more than |16,000,000 Lerdo de Tegido. Mexico, 1853. 
was expended in its erection. In 



THE WAT TO THE INTERIOR. 115 



that little gave place to despair, as vessel after vessel 
approached the land ; and, as they were dashed upon it, 
men held their breath, watching the hardy seamen strug- 
gling in the waves. One staunch vessel without cargo 
being carried broadside on, her crew leaped out of her 
and ran off safely. Was it such a tempest as this that 
stranded the vessels of Cortez ? 




^^^4 







VERA CRUZ IN A STORM. 



The traveller of our day finds his advantage in landing 
where Cortez disembarked. Following his route north- 
ward along the belt which separates the precipitous 
mountains from the sea, he reaches a little river, which 
has opened a gorge [gordo) through that barrier to the 
upper country. This narrow strip of level land is noted 
for its intense heat, its excessive fertility, the pesti- 



116 A TROPICAL SHORE. 



lential character of its atmosphere, and the mahgnity of 
the poisons which it engenders. On the surface, it is 
Paradise. Beneath, death lurks in a thousand forms, 
to entrap the unacclimated. Noted in the history of 
the conquest, it has an abundance of attractions for 
those who dare to linger by the way. It is all wilder- 
ness. Yet the graceful features of the creepers, hang- 
ing from branch to branch of the sycamores, and the 
shady arbors formed by their dense foliage, look as though 
a gardener's hand could be traced in so much regularity ; 
still it is only nature's own, and there the wild birds build 
their nests, and breed and sing without disturbance. 

Often has the author, riding through these forests, dis- 
mounted by some running brook, and, while his horse 
was feeding, almost fallen asleep under the soothing influ- 
ence such an atmosphere inspires when heated from fast 
riding beneath a vertical sun ! Those moments belong 
to sensations that can neither be described, nor appre- 
ciated by those who have not experienced them. Poets 
have exhausted their power in painting the beauty of this 
spot, where every sense is satiated with enjoyment. Yet 
our gratification is alloyed by evils that remind us Paradise 
is not to be found on earth. Here the whole animal king- 
dom is busily laboring for the destruction of its kind. 
Reptiles prey upon each other ; parasitic plants aflBx them- 
selves to the trees, and suck out the sap of their exist- 
ence ; and man, though he enjoys to a surfeit the boun- 
ties of nature, must watch narrowly against the poison 
that comes to mar his pleasure, and to teach him the 



A COUNTRY IN THE CLOUDS. 117 



wholesome lessoii; that true happiness is only found in 
heaven. 

When this region of temptation has at length been 
passed, and a point reached where the road turns to- 
ward the interior, we have to climb a hilly gorge — Cerro- 
gordo. Through it a new climate, new scenes, and 
new productions are continually presented, until the 
famous plateau of Jalapa, in the region of clouds and 
perpetual moisture, is attained — more than four thousand 
feet above the sea. It is an extensive plateau, half way up 
the mountain. The beautiful convolvulus jalapa does not 
flourish there, it is brought from the Indian villages of 
Colipa and Masantla, situated in the valleys that run 
among the hills. The myrtle, too, whose grain is the 
spice of Tabasco, is produced in the forests by the river 
Boriderus; the smilax, whose root is the true sarsapa- 
rilla, grows likewise deep down in the humid and umbra- 
geous ravines of the Cordilleras ; while the cocoa is brought 
from Acayucan. In the ever-green forests of Papantla 
and Nantla, dwells the epidendrum vanilla, whose odorif- 
erous fruit is used as a perfume.* These characteristic 
productions are from the mysterious mountain valleys, 
where, thousands of years before any of the present gene- 
ration, an unknown race of men flourished ; a race as civil- 
ized as were the people of Palmyra or Egypt, a fact clearly 
indicated by the ruins in the forests of Misantla and Pa- 
pantla ; their existence is as unknown to the Indians who 
now wander about the dilapidated edifices, and isolated 

* Humboldt's Essay Politique. 



118 CROSSING THE PLATEAU. 



pyramids of the " hot country," as to us ; but of these we 
shall speak when we come to discuss their antiquities. 
These places lie to the south of the territory occupied by 
the Aztecs ; and in the lower valleys. 

The climbing is not ended by our arrival at the first 
plateau, above the ordinary level of the clouds. A moun- 
tain is still beyond and above us. A broad plain and 
valley lie, indeed, between the traveller and the new 
ascent, which he must make to reach the true table-land 
of the Aztecs. The valley is not deep, nor is the plateau 
broad, that he crosses to the base of the mountains ; yet 
is it so luxuriant, nothing but the gorgeous language of the 
Spanish poets can well picture to the dweller in northern 
climates its attractions. It is a spot more beautiful even 
than that already described — beautiful as a fairy land. 

The road now before us hes across the mountain of 
Perote, at an elevation of more than ten thousand feet,* 
the highest a stage-coach has yet reached, one from which 
may oftentimes be enjoyed a view of all the vegetable 
"kingdoms of the world in a moment of time." The 
coveted seat is that on the top of the coach above the 
driver, whence the traveller may enjoy a last, lingering 
look at this paradise of nature, before the mountain ridge 
intervenes between the world behind and the great salt 
desert next to be traversed. The valley passed, we 
ascend so rapidly that before an hour goes by we can 
mark a changed vegetation, and observe the products of 
a colder climate ; and this change is a barometer, which, 

* 10,400 feet. See Humboldt's Essai Politique. 



VIEW OF ALL THE VEGETABLE KINGDOMS. 119 



in Mexico, marks the ascent and descent as regularly as 
the most nicely adjusted artificial instrument. So accu- 
rately are these strata adapted to those of the atmo- 
sphere, they lead us to imagine that cultivation has laid 
out the different fields as they rise one above another 
upon the side of the mountain constituting the eastern 
enclosure of the table-land. The fertility of the soil does 
not seem to diminish ; yet the character of the vegetation 
changes step by step, as we wind our way towards the 
summit of the Perote. 

At La Hoya the road becomes so steep as to reduce the 
travel to a walk ; perhaps the better opportunities thus 
had to survey the novel sights that present themselves at 
every turn of the road, more than repay the increased 
fatigue. When wearied with climbing, or breathing the 
rarified air of this altitude, if the visitor seat himself by 
the roadside he catches momentary glimpses, among the 
floating clouds, of the country through which he passed 
in his ascent from the coast. We see a long distance 
through such a medium, but it is only a bird's-eye view 
we have, and the mass is more than vision can fully take 
in. Soon some ragged cloud passes across the picture ; and 
the eye loses the details of the scene, and with it, a strange 
epitome of all the excellencies of all the climates. Still 
there is time to divide this world below into sections ; 
and then the beholder contemplates in part, and at length 
realizes as a whole, the scene we have presented. The 
art of man never has, and never can, produce such a 
combination in the courses of vegetation. Standing at 
an elevation where pine trees grow in the tropics, where 



120 



THE CENTURY PLANT. 



a fence encloses the field, on which a storm of snow 
and sleet has fallen only a few hours before, we look 
down upon hills and plains, one below another, each 
in the descending scale, exhibiting more and more of tro- 
pical production, until the region of cocoa-nuts and ban- 
anas, sarsaparilla and palms, jalap and vanilla, is 
reached in the perspective. It is a specimen chart, in 
which all the climates and productions of the world are 
within the scope of a single glance. 

When the highest ridge is crossed, we descend into an 
entirely different world. A fine grain-growing country, 
through which well cultivated fields stretch out as far as 
the eye can reach. Farmhouses scattered here and there 
strikingly remind the traveller of his northern home at 
the same season of the year. Its most striking peculi- 
arities are the fences, formed by rows of the maguey or 

century plant, growing by 
the side of a ditch. There 
it reaches its greatest per- 
fection, and adds mate- 
rially to the fine appear- 
ance of the enclosures, 
seen as it is everywhere. 
It grows wild upon the 
mountains, it springs up 
in all uncultivated places, 
and is grown as a domes- 
tic plant, in little patches, 
and also in fields of leag-ues 

o 

in extent. It thrives luxu- 






\< 



^ 







THE MAGUEY, PEEPARED FOR EXTRACTING 
PULQUE. 



THE CENTURY PLANT. 



121 



riantly in the richest soils, yet shows itself in the desert 
plains, too, where nothing else except a few spears of 
stunted grass and chapparal can exist.* 



* The uses to which this plant is 
applied are more numerous than the 
methods of its cultivation. When its 
immense leaf is pounded into a pulp, 
it is converted into paper and also into 
a substitute for cloth. The fibre of 
the leaf, beaten and spun, becomes a 
beautiful thread, resembling silk in 
its glossy texture, yet when woven 
into a fabric, more resembles linen 
than silk. This thread is now and 
ever has been the sewing thread of the 
country. The leaf of the maguey 
crudely dressed and manufactured is 
woven into sail-cloth and sacking, and 
forms the bagging in common use. 
The ropes made from it are of that 
kind called Manilla hemp. It is also 
the best material in use for wrapping 
paper. Cut into coarse straw it forms 
the brooms and whitewash-brushes of 
the country, and as a substitute for 
bristles is used for scrub-brushes. 
Finally, it supplies the place of hair 
combs among the common people. 
But the great value of the maguey 
plant arises from the amount of intoxi- 
cating liquid it produces called pulque. 

The maguey furnishes the chief 
source of intoxication among the com- 
mon people of the table-land. There 
are two species of this plant cultivated. 
One of them flourishes in the desert 
portions of the country, from which 
an abominable liquor is distilled, called 
mescal or mejical. The other is the 
flowering maguey, or century plant, 
of which so many fabulous stories are 
told in the United States. This is one 
of the wonders of the vegetable world. 




FLOWERING MAGUEY. 



Its juice is gathered from the cen- 
tral basin by cutting off a side-leaf and 
cutting out the heart, just before the 
sprouting of the hampe, for whose 
sustenance this juice is destined. The 
basin, thus formed, yields every day 
from four to seven quarts — according 
to the size and thriftiness of the plant 
— for a period of two or three months. 
The process of taking it out of the 



122 MORNING TWILIGHT. 



There is something, too. exceedingly attractive in the 
appearance of the heavens upon this elevated table, 7692 
feet above the ocean. The morning starlight is most 
beautiful. It is so much clearer, and the stars are so 
much brighter than in the dense atmosphere we inhabit, 
that the traveller, though half chilled and sleepy, rouses 
himself to contemplate the brilliant sights above. The 
brightest that he has watched from childhood up are brighter 
now than ever, and new ones fill the void in his celestial 
chart; even their satellites are to be seen dancing around 
the well known planets. The North Star is still visible, 
now 19° only above the horizon, but the Dipper has 
almost disappeared. The Southern Cross, that myste- 
rious combination, and emblem of the faith of South- 
ern America, which only reaches the meridian at mid- 
night prayers, is here 25° above the horizon, and shining 
brilliantly. To watch these, besides many other unknown 



plant is a little curious. Into the end and is readily sold for eight, and some- 

of a long gourd is inserted a cow's times as high as twenty-five cents a 

horn, bored at the point ; through this quart, producing a very large revenue 

horn and into the gourd the juice is upon the cost of the plant. It is not 

sucked up by applying the mouth to ordinarily sold at wholesale ; but each 

a hole in the opposite side of the gourd, maguey estate has its retail shops in 

From the gourd-shell the juice is emp- town, from which the whole product 

tied into a bottle formed from the skin of the estate is retailed out. One man, 

of a hog, which still retains much of who has five of these shops in the 

the form of the animal. To form this city of Mexico, keeps his carriage ; 

bottle of honey-water into pulque, all and is reckoned among the magnates 

that is necessary is to put into it a of the land, deriving, from this source 

little of the same material which has alone, it is said, $25,000 a year. The 

been laid aside till it became sour, excise which government derives from 

which operates like yeast, causing the the sale of this liquor, which, in taste, 

honey-water to ferment. resembles sour buttermilk, amounted 

As soon as the maguey-juice in the to $817,739 in the year 1793. — Mexico 

hog-skin has fermented, it is pulque ; and its Religion. 



THE DESERT. 123 



and unfamiliar constellations, the short hours of the night 
are well spent on the driver's box. Gradually you de- 
scend into what appears to have once been the bottom 
of a salt lake. The ground there is everywhere partially 
incrusted with a compound called tequesquita, composed 
of equal parts of muriate and carbonate of soda, and 
insoluble matter (common earth) ; this material is used 
by Mexicans as a substitute for salt and soda. A stunted 
grass grows here and there, scattered in patches over the 
had land, as these barren plains are called ; and the dry 
earth, rarely moistened for six months together, is fre- 
quently covered with drifting sand, driven about by the 
fierce winds of this desert. 

How great the change from those scenes we lately passed! 
The celestial chart, admired with so much rapture, gradu- 
ally rolls itself up, and, as the sun comes out, we gage 
the dreariness around. It is truly a had land — a land of 
evil — a land for prowlers ; where vultures watch for the 
carcasses of the djring, and robbers ply their calling with 
little fear of detection. In the midst of all, there hes a 
little lake, which looks, a while, like an enchanted scene, 
and then disappears from our sight. 

The desert of the table-land over, we are in the midst 
of fruitful fields of wheat and maguey, of Indian corn and 
barley. And now the traveller has a new view of the 
immense mountain barriers, that shut in his vision. 
Two extinct volcanoes,* twin giants, are at hand; at 



* Popocatepetl (the moantain with fancied resemblance to a woman laid 
a smoking mouth) and Izlacihuatl — out in a winding-sheet, 
the white woman — so called from a 



124 AZTEC DOMINION TO THE PACIFIC. 



their feet lie the countries of Cholula and Tlascala; 
of which we shall speak at length, as we follow the 
footsteps of Cortez to the valley of Mexico. Upon 
the table-land, to the north and westward, the Aztecs 
do not appear to have extended their conquests. That 
country was occupied by fierce and warlike tribes, and 
had few attractions for those who follow war as a trade, 
for the moving cause of military expeditions, the spoils 
of the conquered. Their conquests were in a southerly 
direction, where a rich spoil lay feebly protected by effe- 
minate tribes. The struggle with the Tlascalans was 
rather to shut them in, that Mexico might enjoy this 
plunder without a rival, than for conquest. 

The whole foreign policy of the Aztecs seems to have 
been embraced in this idea — a monopoly of the plunder 
of the hot country. This explains their rapid progress 
in wealth, without any advance in civiHzation. A 
chain of garrisons, from Mexico to Avhere Vera Cruz 
now lies, and from Mexico to the Pacific, shut off the 
northern tribes from the prolific "hot country" — the 
region of their most successful forays — a region abound- 
ing in the ruins of an ancient civilization, strangely in 
contrast with their own barbarism; and the barbarism 
of all North American Indians. 

If we follow the Aztec border southward to the Pacific 
we cross again mountain ridges, that in a descending 
series occupy the space between the table-land and the 
waters of the ocean. This series is of more recent origin 
than that which meets us on the Atlantic side. Nature 
has not yet grown quiet there, and, as we near the sea, 



SOUTH-EAST AZTEC PROYINCES. 125 



we enter the region of earthquakes, where rocks are rent 
and villages overturned by the violence with which the 
earth is sometimes shaken. In the days of Spanish 
power an extensive trade in silver, and in the merchan- 
dise of the East, was carried on across these mountains 
by the aid of mules, to the land-locked harbor of Aca- 
pulco — a spot so romantic as to deserve a special notice. 
That harbor appears like a nest scooped out of the moun- 
tains, into and out of which the tide ebbs and flows by a 
double entrance riven by an earthquake in the solid 
rock. Tradition says another once existed, which an 
earthquake closed, while it opened the present channels. 
There is still in the sharp mountain ridge, that shuts it 
from the sea, another opening, dug by the labor of man, 
at a point opposite the entrance of the harbor ; to let in 
the cool sea-breeze upon one of the hottest and most un- 
healthy places upon this continent. Such, in substance, 
is and was the little city of Acapulco, the seat and focus 
of the Oriental commerce of New Spain, and of the Span- 
ish empire. 

South and east of the Mexican valley he the coun- 
tries whence the Aztecs appear to have derived their 
richest spoils, and which probably witnessed their highest 
military achievements- — Tabasco, Chiapa, Oajaca, Guata- 
mala, Yucatan. Over a portion of these " hot countries" 
they exercised an ill-defined jurisdiction, and gathered 
thence, not only spoil, but also among other trophies cer- 
tain vestiges of an antique civilization unknown to other 
tribes. This, resembling in its ruins that of Nineveh 
and Egypt, constitutes the only real enigma our subject 



126 



ACAPULCO. 



involves, and it hence becomes our duty to contribute 
towards its solution. 







ACAPULCO. 

In order to complete the picture of the interior, let us now make a jour- 
ney in another direction — from Acapulco northward to the city of Mexico — 
the route that the East India trade used to follow. But, first of all, let 
us discourse a little time about this port of Acapulco, once so famous upon 
the South Seas. It was not discovered when Cortez built, in Colima, the 
vessels that went to search for a north-west passage ; but when they had 
returned from their fruitless voyage, they anchored in the mountain-girt har- 
bor of Acapulco. The discoveries of the celebrated navigator, Magellan, 
fixed the commercial character and importance of this seaport. He had 
sailed through the straits that bear his name, and coasted northwardly as far 
as the trades. And from thence he bore away to the Spice Islands, discover- 
ing on the voyage the Philippine Islands, where the city of Manilla was 
founded. By this voyage he demonstrated that the advantages of a route, 
across the Pacific were so superior to a voyage around Cape Horn, as to jus- 
tify the expense of a land transit from Acapulco to Vera Cruz, and reship- 



THE author's itinerancy. 127 



ment to Spain. Now that the Panama Eailroad is made, this demonstration 
may prove advantageous to other nations. 

The practical advantage of this discovery was the establishment of the 
Manilla Company, whose annual galleon carried out 1,000,000 silver dol- 
lars to purchase Oriental products for the consumption of Spain and all her 
American colonies. In this galleon sailed the friars that went forth to the 
spiritual conquest of India. In it sailed Spanish soldiers, who followed hard 
after the priests, to add the temporal to the spiritual subjugation of Oriental 
empires. To this harbor the galleon returned, freighted with the rich mer- 
chandise of China, Japan, and the Spice Islands. When the arrival of the 
galleon was announced, traders hastened from evel-y quarter of New Spain to 
attend the annual fair. Little vessels from down the coast came to get their 
share of the mammoth cargo. The king's officers came to look after the royal 
revenue ; and caravans of mules were summoned to transport the Spanish 
portion of the freight to Vera Cruz. Thus, for a short time, the population 
of this village was swollen from 4000 to 9000, which fell off again when the 
galleon took her departure. 

Such was the commercial condition of the town of Acapulco down to the 
time of the independence. From this time it was lost to commerce, until it 
was made a half-way house on the voyage to California. The town lies upon 
the narrow intervale between the hills and the harbor. It is built of the 
frailest material, and is destroyed about once in ten years by an earthquake. 

The castle of San Diego stands upon the high bank, and, though command- 
ing the entrance to the harbor, is itself commanded by the surrounding high 
lands, and has so often been taken by assault during the last thirty years as 
to be considered untenable. 

It was still dark when I left Alta in order to clear the Peregrine Pass, and 
reach Tierra Colorado that day. In a few hours I gained the top of the pass, 
and sat down to take a survey of the zigzag way up which my mustang had 
climbed, and of the extensive region of hill and mountain country before me. 
It is difficult to believe that over this slight mule-path all the Spanish com- 
merce of India has passed, and cargoes of silver dollars, amounting to hun- 
dreds of millions, during a period of three hundred years. Over this pass 
armies have continued to advance and to retreat with one uniform result : if 
the army is a large one, it is starved out of the country ; if it is a small one, 
it is destroyed. Here prevails not only that harmless cutaneous affection, the 
Quiricua, which causes people to appear spotted or painted {Pinios), but also 
the goitre. . . . 

Not stopping to examine the ruins of great antiquity near this place, I rode 



128 CUERNAYACA. 



on six leagues farther, -when I arrived at the venerable city of Cuernavaca, 
the place selected by Cortez as the finest spot in all New Spain. This waa 
bestowed upon him, at his own request, by the Emperor Charles V. as a resi- 
dence. It merits to this day the distinction that has been given to it as one 
of the finest spots on earth. It stands close under the shadow of the huge 
mountains that shield it from the northern blast, and it is at the same time 
protected from the extreme heat of the tropics by its elevation of 3000 feet. 
The immense church edifices here proclaim the munificence of Cortez, while 
the garden of Laborde, open to the world, shows with what elegant taste he 
squandered his three several fortunes accumulated in mining. The combina- 
tion of a fine day in a vcfluptuous climate, the beautiful scenery, and the 
happy faces of the people celebrating New-Year's day in the shade of the 
orange-trees, made an impression upon a traveller not easily forgotten. — 
Wilson's Mexico and its Beligion, page 132. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE GEOLOGY OF A COUNTRY PRODUCING THE PRECIOUS 
METALS. 

The geology in Mexican history, 129 — Civilized and savage gold diggers, 
129 — Civilized digger a geologist, 130 — The gold diggers' geology, 131 — 
His speculation of floods, 132 — Intellectual superiority of the Anglo-Saxon, 
133 — The silver miner, 133 — The chemistry of mining, 134 — The gold 
digger avoids the primitive, 134 — The silver miner seeks for ores in the 
primitive rocks, 135 — Why this chapter necessary, 136 — The silver mines, 
137— The Real del Monte mines, 137. 

A COUNTRY like Mexico, whose staple is the precious 
metals, has a history and character peculiarly its own. It 
cannot be measured by the standard of others, nor its com- 
mercial prosperity by the products of its agriculture and 
manufactures. The treasure that lies beneath its surface 
is constantly scattering with a capricious hand fortunes to 
individuals — fortunes as delusive to the lucky recipients 
as disastrous in their results to the community. These 
instances beget a passion for sudden wealth, in all classes, 
and affect even the tone and character of the body politic. 
The geology of such a country necessarily influences its 
history. The one cannot be well understood without first 
considering the other. 

The two precious metals give rise to two classes of 
miners — those who delve for silver in the primitive rocks, 
and those who wash gold, either from the debris of moun- 

9 (129) 



130 GOLD DIGGERS. 



tain rivulets, and exhausted river-beds, or grind it from 
the original quartz matrix, as yet undisturbed by moun- 
tain torrents. The Mexican Indian easily learned the 
simple processes by which the shining bits of gold could 
be gathered from the " rough rock" or " hard pan-clay" 
bottom of living streams ; and that these could be wrought 
into attractive ornaments for his person, his weapons, and 
his wigwam — the only uses to which he could ajDply it. 
The civilized gold digger brought both art and skill to 
obtain that which to him has not only a value, but is a 
standard of all values. He quickly learned, too, that 
metal was to be found, as abundantly where now no signs 
of water exist, as in the banks and eddies of streams 
themselves. If by the exercise of his intellect he con- 
cluded that beneath an existing range of hills water had 
once ran, there he knew gold had been deposited likewise 
of old. Relying on these conclusions, this man unhesita- 
tingly embarks both labor and capital in a shaft or in a 
drift through the earth and rocks, that impede his access 
to the spot fixed, as the probable depository of an aurifer- 
ous clay. Herein consists the chief difference between the 
Indian and the civilized miner. The one employs labor, 
without calculation, in the acquisition of a metal of no 
other value, in his estimation, than its use as an orna- 
ment. The other exerts his intellect, as much as his 
hands, in the acquisition of a metal precious to him in 
every sense. 

The civilized digger's employment involves him in the 
mazes of geological science. He searches for gold as 
readily beneath the " everlasting hills" as in the running 



THE CIVILIZED DIGGER. 131 



waters, though no evidence exists that water has run in 
those exhausted river-beds he seeks, since the oldest of the 
present mountain chains were formed. He feels his way 
among the ruins of an ancient world, as he follows the 
course of its choked-up rivers and subverted valleys, and 
thus material forms become familiar to him, that existed 
and passed away, apparently, long before the advent of 
Adam. In his daily employment he has to act upon 
principles, that to other classes of society are merely sub- 
jects of abstract speculation. The one idea that the sur- 
face of this solid earth has not always continued as now 
since the time of its creation directs his labors. Changes 
that appear to have taken place in countless ages past, 
and changes that have occurred comparatively but yester- 
day, to him, are registered unmistakably upon the moun- 
tains and in the valleys. Bewildered by the speculations 
to w^hich his daily employment leads, he is forced to con- 
clude that an almost infinity of years separates him from 
that distant past. The Beginning. 

A miner's avocation restricts his philosophy to the 
practical. He has no occasion to meddle with the wild 
speculations of popular geologists. The outlines of science 
are sufficient. In detail there may be different theories 
to which he does not object. The waters of the ocean may 
be the product of combustion deposited drop by drop. 
The mountains and the broken surface of the land may 
have been caused by the bubbUng and breaking of its 
crust from liquid fire, and seven distinct floods may have 
occurred before the creation of Adam — he cares not ; his 
business is with facts, not theories. Before the sun and 



132 SPECULATIONS ON FLOODS. 



moon actually shone upon our globe, there may have 
been days that were really geological eras ; not such as, 
after that event, were measured by a single revolution of 
the earth upon its axis. These are all subordinate ques- 
tions to him, unworthy of inquiry. 

To those engaged amid the disturbed strata of the earth 
in search of gold the theory of floods is popular, and they 
readily admit the disappearance of race after race of animal 
creations, as the result of the ordinary cataclysms that 
preceded the advent of man. So constantly the seeker 
finds what he believes are sea marks, or the beds of ex- 
hausted rivers, in unexpected places, that he not only 
adopts the theory of frequent floods, in the chaotic era, 
but looks, perhaps, even upon that of Noah as the result 
of natural causes — the dry land and the sea changing 
places. The miracle with him is rather the preservation 
of Noah and those in the ark than in the changes that 
occasioned it. These practical geologists believe the mine- 
ral they seek was disengaged from its quartz matrix in 
ages long past, and, though scattered since by the action 
of water, that it rested there until borne thence in the 
eddies of some new-formed river. 

All gold-diggers do not thus reason ; nor even all those 
of Saxon origin. But the secret of the success of the 
latter in a single one of the many neglected placers of 
Spanish America is told, when we say they think while 
they labor. Laboring with greater energy, too, than the 
Spanish-American natives, they tax their intellectual 
powers at the same time to the utmost to increase the 
profit of their toil. The Spanish- American, like his In- 



SILVER MINES. 133 



dian ancestor, works sluggishly, without thought or reflec- 
tion. He relies upon the sober-stante^ to direct him in 
temporal affairs, and on the monk to manage his spi- 
ritual concerns. This blind labor, useful in the silver 
mines, is utterly at fault amid the gold claims. The 
successful gold digger must be a free man, and the 
amount of his intelligence in a great measure determines 
his success. 

The silver miner has an utterly different mission. He 
searches for a less precious mineral, contained in ores, in 
the rifts of the primitive rocks. His enterprise must be 
aided by vast capital, and a thorough combination of 
tools, labor, and science. Geology is not only appealed to 
in the search, but the most intricate combinations of 
chemistry in the separation. The highest engineering 
talent is also requisite to conduct the excavation of the 
shafts. A first class silver mine employs more men and 
animals than would build a moderately sized pyramid ; 
and a mountain of "primitive" formation is sometimes 
pierced with more galleries than the rock of Gibraltar, 
The success of these princely investments depends en- 
tirely on chemical processes — processes it is not likely the 
Aztec Indians either knew or ever practised. It is not 
to be supposed, then, that the Spaniards found them in 
possession of silver, notwithstanding the statements of 
Cortez. 

Let us run over the many chemical operations resorted 
to in separating the silver from the ore. Roll brimstone, 

* Master-workman. 



134 CHEMISTRY OF MINING. 



procured in Durango, or in " the volcano/' and converted 
into sulphuric acid, at the mint in Mexico, is there, after 
it has changed silver into a sulphate, in disengaging par- 
ticles of gold, itself converted into sulphate of copper, 
blue vitriol, in precipitating the silver ; in this form it is 
sent to the miner. The salt required is made from iequis- 
quita. Lime is burned upon the mountains. Besides 
these, litharge and sulphate of iron are used also in addi- 
tion to quicksilver. All the machinery and scientific 
discoveries of modern times are needed also, to obtain 
less than an average of ten per cent, from the ore. Were 
the Aztecs capable of such a combination of science and 
labor ? 

Gold and silver regions appear to have been alike sub- 
jected to great geological changes. But the period these 
occurred in the gold, preceded similar disturbances in the 
silver districts, by, perhaps, an almost infinity of years. 
Electricity may have operated in decomposing the quartz 
matrix j and the floods that have swept the districts 
most abundant in gold, seem to have spread it broad-cast 
over the mountain's base; whence other torrents have 
borne it into valleys then existing that have since changed 
their form. The gold-digger's operations are, therefore, all 
in secondary formations, and in beds of silt. He avoids 
the mountains and precipitous rocks, unless, perchance, 
one of these may have been thrust into some spot that 
has made a tunnel necessary to success. 

Not so with the silver miner. His labors are exclu- 
sively confined to the mountains of primitive formation. 



GOLD AND SILVER MINERS. 



135 



excepting in certain districts of Sonora,* where the matrix 
seems to have decayed ; and the ore often appears to be 
in the silver, rather than the silver in it. Thus the silver 
miner lives, and obtains his metal among rocks, into the 
interior chambers of which he has penetrated by the aid 
of gunpowder and steel; and without these, no silver 
has yet been procured in the country of the Aztecs. 
We have done with the geology and the chemistry 



« " The 'Good Success Mine' (Bueno 
Suceso) was discovered by an In- 
dian, who swam across the river after 
a great flood. On arriving at the 
other side, lie found the crest of an 
immense lode laid bare by the force 
of the water. The greater part of 
this was pure massive silver, spark- 
ling in the rays of the sun. The 
whole town of Batopilos went to gaze 
at the extraordinary sight as soon as 
the river was fordable. This Indian 
extracted great wealth from his mine, 
but, on coming to the depth of three 
Spanish yards [varas), the abundance 
of water obliged him to abandon it, 
and no attempts have since been made 
to resume the working. When the 
silver is not found in solid masses, 
which requires to be cut with the 
chisel, it is generally finely sprinkled 
through the lode, and often serves to 
nail together the particles of stone 
through which it is disseminated." 
" The ores of the Pastiano mine, near 
the Carmen, were so rich that the 
lode was worked by bars, with a point 
at one end and a chisel at the other, 
for cutting out the silver. The owner 
of the Pastiano used to bring the ores 
from the mine with flags flying, and 
the mules adorned with cloths of all 



colors. The same man received a re- 
proof from the Bishop of Durango 
when he visited Batopilos for placing 
bars of silver from the door of his 
house to the great hall [sala) for the 
bishop to walk upon." 

The next mine of interest in our 
progress northward is the Morelos, 
" which was discovered in 1826, by 
two brothers named Aranco. These 
two Indian peons were so poor that, 
the night before their great discovery, 
the keeper of the store had refused to 
credit one of them for a little corn for 
his tortillas. They extracted from 
their claim $270,000 ; yet, in Decem- 
ber, 1826, they were still living in a 
wretched hovel, close to the source 
of their wealth, bareheaded and bare- 
legged, with upward of $200,000 in 
silver locked up in their hut. But 
never was the utter worthlessness of 
the metal, as such, so clearly demon- 
strated as in the case of the Arancos, 
whose only pleasure consisted in con- 
templating their hoards, and occasion- 
ally throwing away a portion of the 
richest ore to be scrambled for by 
their former companions, the work- 
men." — Ward's Mexico, vol. II., page 
578. 



136 WHY THIS CHAPTER WAS NECESSARY. 



necessary to the business of gathering the precious metals. 
Sufficient has been said to show why the gold fields in 
the hands of Anglo-Saxons yield a return immensely 
greater than in those of the intellectually debased Spanish- 
Americans ; and why the production of silver requiring a 
combination of science and mechanical powers unknown 
to the Aztec tribes, was inconsistent with their civiliza- 
tion ; while the possession of gold was not — which is the 
important point we have sought to develope in this 
chapter. Beyond this we have no connection with the 
subject; and the ignorance of the civilized world, before 
the discovery of the precious metals in California, is our 
apology for referring to it at all. 



Silver Mines. — Pachuca is the oldest mining district in Mexico. In its 
immediate vicinity are the most interesting silver mines of the republic. 
These were the first that were worked ; and immediately after the conquest 
were very productive. They were wrought for generations, and then aban- 
doned ; again resumed, after lying idle for nearly a century, and operated 
for almost another hundred years ; then abandoned once more — they were 
resumed again while I was in Mexico. They now produce that princely 
revenue to Escandon & Company, of which I have already spoken. 

The Hakal {Haxal) in part belonged to the number of those which the 
English Real del Monte Company worked on shares, with poor success, 
twenty-five years. It lies about three-fourths of a mile from the village of 
Pachuca. That company devoted their chief attention to the mines upon the 
top of the mountain, at an elevation of nine thousand and fifty-seven feet, 
and seven miles distant from this place, and these mines were comparatively 
neglected. The new company, immediately upon taking possession, devoted 
particular attention to the Hakal, which resulted in their striking a bonanza* 
in the Rosario shaft, which was yielding, from a single pit, about §80,000 
a month, if I recollect rightly. The ore of this mine is of a peculiar quality, 

* This is the name given to a rich section of the vein. 



SILVER MINES. 137 



and its silver is best separated from the scoria by the smelting process, 
of which I shall treat more fully when I come to speak of the mines of Regla. 
The Guadalupe shaft, close by the Eosario, was doing but little when I was 
there, as it does not belong to the same proprietors. On the night of my 
arrival they had just completed the work of pumping the water out of the San 
Nicholas, famous in the early mining history of Mexico. 

The Real del Monte Mine. — Mounted on a good horse, and followed hy 
a lackey, I rode up the zigzag carriage-road which the English company con 
structed a quarter of a century since, in order to convey their immense steam 
machinery to the top of the mountain. This road is still kept in a good state 
of repair, and forms a romantic drive, for those who keep carriages in the 
mountains. The sun was shining upon the cultivated hills and rolling lands 
far below us, as we jogged along our winding way, up the mountain. At 
every turn in the road new beauties presented themselves. But it was 
getting too chilly for moralizing, and both lackey and I were pleased when 
we reached the village, upon the top of the mountain, which bears the name 
of Real del Monte. The house of entertainment here is kept by an English 
woman, who seems to be a part of the mining establishment. While in her 
domicile I found no occasion to regret that I was again elevated into a cold 
latitude. 

After a hearty breakfast at the tavern, I called at the office, or, as it is here 
called, " the Grand House" {Casa Grande), and was introduced by Mr. Auld, 
the director, to the foreman, who took me to the dressing-room, where I was 
stripped, and clad in the garb of a miner, except the boots, which were all 
too short for my feet. My rig was an odd one ; a skull-cap formed like a 
fireman's, a miner's coat and pants, and my own calf-skin boots. But in 
California I had got used to uncouth attire, and now thought nothing of such 
small matters. We therefore walked on without comments to the house built 
over the great shaft, where my good-natured English companion, the fore- 
man, stopped me, to complete my equipment, which consisted of a lighted 
tallow candle stuck in a candlestick of soft mud, and pressed till it adhered 
to the front of my miner's hat. Having fixed a similar appendage to his own 
hat and to the hat of the servant, that was to follow us, we were considered 
fully equipped for descending the mine. 

While standing at the top of the shaft, I was astonished as I looked at the 
size and perfect finish of a steam-pump that had been imported from England, 
by the late mining company. With the assistance of balancing weights, 
the immense arms of the engine lifted, with mathematical precision, two 
square timbers, the one spliced out, to the length of a thousand, the other 



138 SILVER MINES. 



twelve hundred feet. These fell back again by their own weight. They 
were the pumping-rods, that lifted the water four hundred feet to the mouth 
of a tunnel or adit, which carried it a mile and a quarter, through the moun- 
tain, and discharged it in the creek, above the stamping-mill. There is a 
smaller pump, which works occasionally, when the volume of water in the 
mines is too great for the power of a single one. 

A trap-door being lifted, we began to descend by small ladders, that reached 
from floor to floor in the shaft, or rather in the half of the shaft. The whole 
was fifteen or twenty feet square, with sides formed of solid masonry, 
where the rock happened to be soft, while in other parts it consisted of 
natural porphyritic rock cut smooth. This shaft was divided into two parts 
by a partition, which extended the whole distance from the top to the 
bottom of the mine. Through the one materials used in the work were let 
down, and the ore drawn up in large sacks, consisting each of the skin of an 
ox. The other half of the shaft contained the two pumping timbers, and 
numerous floorings at short distances ; from one to another of these ran lad- 
ders, by which men were continually ascending and descending, at the risk 
of falling only a few feet, at the utmost. The descent from platform to plat- 
form was an easy one,^ while the little walk upon the platform relieved the 
muscles exhausted by climbing down. With no great fatigue I got down a 
thousand feet, where our farther progress was stopped by the water that 
filled the lower galleries. 

Galleries are passages running off horizontally from the shaft, either cut 
through the solid porphyry to intersect some vein, or else the space which a 
vein once occupied is fitted up for a gallery by receiving a wooden floor and 
a brick arch overhead. They are the passages that lead to others, and to 
transverse galleries and veins, which, in so old a mine as this, are very nume- 
rous. When a vein sufficiently rich to warrant working is struck, it is fol- 
lowed through all its meanderings, as long as it pays for digging. The opening 
made in following it is, of course, as irregular in form and shape as the vein 
itself. The loose earth and rubbish taken out is thrown into some abandoned 
opening or gallery, so that nothing is lifted to the surface but the ore. Some- 
times several gangs of hands will be working upon the same vein, a board 
and timber floor only separating one set from another. When I have added 
to this description that the business of digging out veins has been continued 
here for near three hundred years, it can well be conceived that this moun- 
tain ridge has become a sort of honeycomb. 

When our party had reached the limit of descent, we turned aside into a 
gallery, and made our way among gangs of workmen, silently pursuing their 



SILYER MINES. 139 



daily labor in galleries and chambers reeking with moisture, while the water 
trickled down on every side, on its way to the common receptacle at the bot- 
tom. Here we saw English carpenters dressing timbers for flooring, by the 
light of tallow candles, that burned in soft mud candlesticks, adhering to the 
rocky walls of the chamber. Men were industriously digging upon the vein, 
others disposing of the rubbish, while convicts were trudging along under 
heavy burdens of ore, which they supported on their backs by a broad strap 
across their foreheads. As we passed among these well-behaved gangs of 
men I was a little startleid by the foreman remarking, that one of the car- 
riers had been convicted of killing ten men, and was under sentence of hard 
labor for life. Far from there being anything forbidding in the appearance 
of even murderers, now that they were beyond the reach of intoxicating 
drink, they bore the ordinary subdued expression of the Meztizo. According 
to custom, they lashed me to a stanchion, as an intruder ; but, upon the fore- 
man informing them that I would pay the usual forfeit of cigar itos on arriving 
at the station-house, they good-naturedly relieved me. Then we journeyed 
on and on, until my powers of endurance could sustain no more ; when we 
sat down to rest, and to gather strength for a still longer journey. At length 
we set out again, sometimes climbing up, sometimes climbing down ; now and 
then stopping to examine different specimens of ores that reflected back the 
glare of our lights, with dazzling brilliancy, and to look at the endless varieties 
in the appearance of the rock, that filled the spaces in the porphyritic matrix. 
Then we walked for a long way on the top of the aqueduct of the adit, until we 
at last reached a vacant shaft, through which we were drawn up, and landed in 
the prison-house, from whence we walked to the station, where we were 
dressed in our own clothes again. 

REDUCTION OP ORES. 
When the underground wanderings were ended, and dinner eaten, it was 
too late in the day to visit the refining works ; but on the next morning, bright 
and early, I was in the saddle, on my way to the different establishments 
connected with this mine. First, upon the river, at the mouth of the adit, 
was a stamping-mill, where gangs of stamps were playing in troughs, and 
reducing the hard ore to a coarse powder. A little way farther down the 
stream the ore was ground, and then, in blast ovens or furnaces, was heated 
until all the baser metals in the ore became charged with oxygen, to such 
a degree, that they would not unite with quicksilver. The ore was then 
carried and placed in the bottom of large casks, and water and quicksilver 
were added, and then they were set rolling by machinery for several days. 



140 



SILVER MINES. 



until the silver had formed an amalgam with the mercury, while the baser 
metals were disengaged from the silver. The whole mass being now poured 
out into troughs, the scoria was washed from the amalgam, which was 
gathered and put into a stout leathern bag, with a cloth bottom, and the 
unabsorbed mercury drained out. The amalgam, resembling lard in appear- 
ance, was. now cut up into cakes, and placed under an immense retort, and 
fire applied ; by which the mercury, in form of vapor, was driven through 
an orifice in the bottom into water, where it condensed, while the silver 
remained pure in the retort. This is called the barrel process, and is used 
for certain kinds of ore. 

I had come self-introduced to the Real del Monte, but that had not pre- 
vented my receiving the accustomed hospitality of the establishment. A 
groom and two of their best horses were at my service during my stay. As 
the weather Avas fine, and the road a first class English carriage-way, I 
heartily enjoyed the ride down the mountain gorge, until it opened upon 
the broad plain, where the second refining establishment, that of Vin- 
cente, is situated. 








FALLS OF EEGLA. 



The Falls and Basaltic Columns of Regla. — The Patio, or open yard of 
Regla, on Avhich the principal portion of the ores of the Real del Monte com- 
pany are " benefited,", or, as we should say, extracted, is situated deep down 
in a barranca, where both water-power and intense heat can be obtained to 



SILVER MINES. 141 



facilitate the process of separation. The immense amount of mason-work, 
here expended in the erection of massive walls, would make an imposing 
appearance, if they had been built up in the open plain ; but here they are so 
overshadowed by the mason- work of nature, that they sink into insignificance, 
in comparison. The bank, some two hundred feet high, of solid rock, as it 
approaches the waterfall on either side, has the appearance of being supported 
by natural buttresses of basaltic columns — columns closely joined together 
and placed erect by the hand of nature's Master-builder, Still, all would 
have been stiff and formal, had the sides of the barranca been lined only with 
perpendicular columns ; but broken and displaced pillars are piled in every 
eonceivable position, against the front, while a vine with brilliant leaves had 
run to every fissure, and spread itself out to enjoy the sunshine. The little 
stream, that had burst its way through the upright columns, and flowed over 
the broken fragments, fell into a perfect basin of basalt, heightening immensely 
the attractions of the spot, I sat down upon a fallen column, and for a long 
time continued to contemplate the unexpected scene, of which, at that time, 
I had read nothing. There was such a mingling of the rich vegetation of the 
" hot country" with the rocky ornaments of this pretty waterfall, that I could 
never grow weary of admiring the combined grandeur and beauty of the place, 
from which Peter Terreros derived his title, 

Peter Terreros, the first Count of Regla, became one of the rich men of 
the last century, in consequence of a lucky mining adventure. In olden times 
the water in the Real del Monte mines had been lifted out of the mouth of the 
Santa Brigeda, and other shafts, in bulls' hides, and carried up on a windlass. 
When near the surface, this simple method of getting the water out has great 
advantages, on account of its cheapness, and is now extensively employed 
in Mexican mines. But after a certain depth had been reached, the head of 
water could no. longer be kept down by this process, and, in consequence, 
the Real del Monte was abandoned about the beginning of the last century, 
and became a perfect ruin ; for no wreck is more complete than that 
which water causes, when it once gets possession, and mingles into one mass, 
floating timbers, loosened earth, rubbish, and soft and fallen rock. By the 
mining laws of Mexico, the title to a mine is lost by abandoning and ceasing 
to work it. It becomes a waif open to the enterprise of any one, who may choose 
to " redenounce" it. The title to the soil in Mexico, as in California, carries no 
title to the gold and silver mineral that may be contained in the land. The pre- 
cious metals are not only regarded in law as treasure-trove, but they carry with 
them, to the lucky discoverer, the right to enter upon another person's property, 
and to appropriate so much of the land, as is necessai'y to avail himself of his 
prize. All California land claims are subject to this legal condition. 



142 SILVER MINES. 



The Count's Fortune. — This Peter Terreros, at first a man of limited 
capital, conceived the idea of draining this abandoned mine by means of a 
tunnel or adit [socabon) through the rock, one mile and a quarter in length, 
from the level of the stream till it should strike the Santa Brigeda shaft. 
Upon this enterprise he toiled, with varied success, from 1750 until 1762, when 
he completed his undertaking, and also struck a bonanza, which continued, for 
twelve years, to yield an amount of silver, which in our day appears to be 
fabulous. The veins which he struck, from time to time, as he advanced with 
his socabon, furnished means to keep alive his enterprise. When he reached 
the main shaft, he had a ruin to clear out, and rebuild, which was a more 
costly undertaking than the building of a king's palace. Yet his bonanza, 
not only furnished all the means, for a system of lavish expenditure upon the 
mines, and refining-works, but also, surplus profits sufi&cient to enable him to 
lay out half a million annually, in the purchase of plantations, or six millions 
of dollars in the twelve years. This is equal to about 500,000 pounds' weight 
of silver ! Besides doing this, he loaned to the king a million of dollars, 
which has never been re-paid, and built and equipped two ships of the line, 
and presented them to his sovereign. 

This once humble shopkeeper, Peter Terreros, after such displays of munifi- 
cence, was ennobled by the title of Count of Regla. Among the common 
people he is the subject of more fables, than was Croesus of old. When his 
children were baptized, so the story goes, the procession walked upon bars 
of silver. By way of expressing his gratitude for the title conferred upon 
him, he sent an invitation to the king to visit him at his mine, assuring his 
majesty, that if he would confer on him such an exalted favor, his majesty's 
feet should not tread upon the ground while he was in the New World. 
Wherever he should alight from his carriage, it should be upon a pavement 
of silver, and the places where he lodged should be lined with the same pre- 
cious metal. Anecdotes of this kind are innumerable, which, of course, 
amount to no more than showing that in his own time his wealth was prover- 
bial, and demonstrate, that in popular estimation, he stood at the head of that 
large class of miners, whom the wise king ennobled as a reward for successful 
mining adventures, and that he was accounted the richest miner in the vice- 
kingdom. The state and magnificence which he oftentimes displayed sur- 
passed even that of the Viceking himself, without embarrassing an estate, the 
largest ever accumulated by one individual, in a single enterprise. 

How HE EXPENDED HIS MoNEY. — Count Pctcr is estimated to have expended 
two and a half millions of dollars, upon the buildings constituting the refining 
establishment of Eegla, which goes under the general designation of i\\Q patio. 



SILVER MINES. 143 



Why his walla were built so thick, or why so many massive arches should 
have been constructed, is an enigma to the present generation, as, in the 
bottom of a barranca, they could not have been intended for a fortress. 

The Chemical Processes in Silver Mining. — But let us go in and examine 
the different methods of "benefiting" silver here applied. The ores from 
the Rosario shaft of the Hakal mine of Pachuca are stamped and ground, 
and then thrown into a furnace, after having been mixed with lime, which in 
fire increases the heat; while upon the open ^orto we shall see that lime is 
used to cool the ore. Litharge (oxide of lead) is added, and the mass is 
burned until the litharge is decomposed, the lead uniting with the silver, 
while the oxygen enters into the slag, which the baser metals, or scoria, in 
the ore, have formed. This is cast out, at the bottom of the furnace. 
The mass of molten lead and silver is drawn off, and placed in a large oven, 
with a rotary bottom, into which tongues of flame are continually driven, until 
the lead, in the compound, has become once more oxidized, forming litharge, 
and the silver is left in a pure state. This is the most simple method of 
"benefiting" silver. 

The Patio. — A little beyond the furnace is a series of tubs, built of blocks, 
from the broken columns. In the centre of each revolves a shaft with four 
arms, to each of which is fastened a block of basalt, that is dragged on 
the stone bottom of the tub, where broken ore mixed with water is ground to 
the finest paste. Here the chemical process of " benefiting" commences. A 
bed is prepared, upon the paved floor (patio) in the yard, in the same manner 
as a mortar bed is prepared, to receive quicklime dissolved in water. Into 
which is poured the semi-liquid mass. This is called a io7'ta, and contains 
about 45,000 lbs. Upon this four and a half cargas, of 300 lbs. of salt is 
spread, and then a coating of blue vitriol (sulphate of copper) is laid over the 
whole, and then it is tramped by mules. If the mass is found to be too hot, 
for the advantageous working of the process, lime in sufiicient quantities is 
added to cool it ; and if too cool, then iron pyrites (sulphate of iron) is added. 
The mules are then turned again upon the bed, and for a single day it is 
mixed most thoroughly together, by tramping, and by turning it with shovels. 
On the second day 750 lbs. of quicksilver are added to the torta, and then the 
tramping is resumed. 

The most important personage, not even excepting the director, is called 
" the tester ;" for the condition of the ores varies so much, that experience 
alone can determine the mode of proceeding with each separate torta, and 
upon the tester's judgment depends, oftentimes, the question whether a min- 
ing enterprise, involving millions of dollars, shall prove a profitable or unprofit- 



144 SILVER MINES. 



able adventure. Perhaps he cannot read or write, though daily engaged in 
carrying on, empirically, the most difficult of chemical processes. To him is 
intrusted the entire control of the most valuable article employed in mining — 
the quicksilver. He is constantly testing the various tortas spread out upon 
the ^a^to ; to one he determines that lime must be added ; to another, an oppo- 
site process must be applied, by adding iron pyrites. When all is ready, with 
his own hands, he applies the quicksilver, by expressing it through the pores 
of a little cloth bag, as he walks over and over the toria, much after the 
manner of sowing seed with us. The tester determines when the silver has 
all been collected, and amalgamated with the mercuz-y. Whether the tramping 
process, and the turning by shovels, shall continue for six weeks, or for only 
three, is decided by him. When he decides that it is prepared for washing, 
the mass is transported to an immense washing machine, which is propelled 
by water, where the base substances are all washed from the amalgam, after 
which it is resolved into its original elements, of silver and quicksilver, by 
fire, as already explained ; with the loss of about seventy-five to one hundred 
pounds of mercury upon each torta. 

Having thus described, with some minuteness, one of the most extensive 
silver mines in the world, where an average of 5000 men and unnumbered 
animals are employed, it will not be necessary to go into details, as we notice 
the many other celebrated mines of Mexico. — Mexico and its Religion. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE EXTINCT EMPIRE OF CENTRAL AMERICA IDENTIFIED AS 
PHOENICIAN IN ITS ARCHITECTURE, ART, AND RELIGION. 

The antiquity of Central American ruins, 145 — Egyptian analogies, 146 — 
Ancient Americans not Egyptian in manner of worship, 146 — Obstacles 
to Egyptian migration, 147 — The era of Egyptian prosperity, 148 — Philistia 
and Phoenicia, 149 — Tarshish and its commerce, 150 — The religion of Tar- 
shish, 152 — The Latin cross at Xineveh and Tyre, 152 — The ancient mag- 
netic cross, 153 — The cross the emblem of Ashteroth, 154 — Tyre the Paris 
of antiquity, 155 — Causes of decline of ancient nations, 156 — Sacrificing 
children to Molech or Saturn, 157 — The Phoenician Madonna at Palenque, 
158 — Offering children to the cross at Palenque, 158 — The copper medallion 
alleged to have been found there, 160 — The tortoise the emblem of a Phoe- 
nician colony, 161 — The river vrall of Copan, 161 — The alleged Phoenician 
MS., 161 — Recapitulation of Phoenician analogies, 162 — The bronze tools 
and weapons of antiquity, 163 — Steel by its cheapness supplanting bronze, 
164 — A retrospect of antiquity, 165 — The dense population of ancient Cen- 
tral America, 166 — The result of commerce, 166 — Ancient routes of this 
commerce, 167 — Probable cause of its extinction, 167 — The Oriental origin 
of Greek civilization, 169 — Greek ignorance of antiquity, 170 — The suc- 
ceeding era, 170 — Decay of races, 171 — Each continent has a common hive, 
172 — Our cause proved by unwilling witnesses, 172 — Why the fabled visit 
of the Apostle invented, 173 — The proofs necessary, 173 — Priority of sailing 
vessels to galleys, 174 — The proper judges of evidence, 176 — The incon- 
gruity of races, 177. 

The wreck of an extinct southern empire is the grand 
enigma of our continent. The remains of ancient cities — 
homogeneous in their character — extend the whole length 
of Yucatan, and re-appear in Honduras and Tehuantepec. 
These ruins are not those of temporary structures, nor of 
such as the revolutions of a few centuries would destroy. 
In their solidity they strikingly remind us of the best 

10 (145) 



146 EGYPTIAN ANALOGIES. 



productions of Egyptian art. Nor are they less venera- 
ble in appearance than those which excite our admira- 
tion in the valley of the Nile. Their points of resem- 
blance, too, are so numerous, they carry to the beholder 
a conviction, that the architects on this side the ocean, 
were familiar with the models on the other. They bear 
the impress of vast wealth and resources,* and appear as 
though built at different eras ; while repeated renewals 
of their stucco indicate as strongly an actual use for many 
centuries. 

These ruins are Egyptian in their obelisks or square 
columns.^ In their painted statues, their hierogiyphical 
tablets and plinths, J their painted sculpture § and their 
paintings. 1 1 In the use and application of hierogiyphical 
inscriptions,^ they are Egyptian ; and so too in some of 
their common emblems.** They are EgyjDtian likewise 
in their pyramids,'|-|' and in the purposes to which their 
vaults are applied. Nor are some of these structures 
a whit behind their models in dimension .|J Those extant 
show the remains of a stone casing like those of their 
prototypes.§§ Each people also excavated sepulchres in 
the rock.||ll And on the upright face of the block called 
the " sacrificial" stone, we recognise the Egyptian celebra- 
tion of victory .^^ Their approximations of the arch*** 
too are the same; and so likewise their use of bronze 
for tools. fff 

* See Note (1), at the end of this chapter. f ^^ote (2). 

J Notes (3) and (4). I Note (5). || Note (6). f Note (7). 

** Note (8). ft Note (9). 1% Note (10). §§ Note (11). 

III! Note (12.) Hf Note (13). »** Note (14). 

Iff The subject of bronze weapons and tools is fully discussed in a subse- 
quent part of this chapter. 



ANCIENT AMERICANS NOT EGYPTIAN. 147 



Yet, with all these striking points of resemblance, the 
ancient inhabitants of Central America were not Egyp- 
tians, Their largest pyramids were not complete, but 
truncated ; and upon these lofty platforms the temples of 
their idol-worship were constructed.* Neither were the 
American dead embalmed, but, when decomposition had 
done its work, their bones were packed in jars, and depo- 
sited in the vaults of their pyramids.^ The divinities 
of both races appear to have been in part identical, but 
their methods of worship different. All the gods of anti- 
quity had their emblems. Among the Egyptians these 
emblems were living animals. They represented Apis by 
a bull. Thoth by an ibis. Phre by a hawk. Seb by a 
crocodile. Anubis by a jackal. And in this form fifteen 
divinities appear upon the standards among the figures 
of the gods in the tomb of Rameses IV. at Bab-al- 
Melook.J To these emblems certain of the divine honors 
were paid, which were due to the god, others were reserved 
for the image. Hardly an animal or insect in Egypt, but 
was the emblem of some divinity, and held sacred in some 
of its cities. In Central America the existence of sacred 
animals or insects is still doubtful. § 

Among the ancient races we find a diversity in the 
titles and forms of worship paid the same divinity ; most 
perplexing to the student of mythology. The Philistine, 
the Phoenician, and the Egyptian deities were manifestly 
of Hindoo origin ;|| and, apparently under another modi- 
fication of form, the Central Americans adored the same 
gods. The burdens of superstition and caste so impeded 

* Note (15). t Note (16). % Kenrick's Ancient Egypt, vol. I. p. 19. 

I Note (17). II Note (18). 



148 ERA OF EGYPTIAN PROSPERITY. 



the people of the Nile as to render them incapable of 
great and distant commercial enterprises, while the sea 
was also unclean to them. We should therefore be sur- 
prised to find strong evidences of their actual presence in 
America, but, not to find there, their gods. 

Rejecting those fables, which rank Noah as the first 
king of Egypt, and Mizraim, the son of Ham, as the 
second sovereign of the first dynasty, we must also 
reject, of course, those more absurd, which assign to that 
country a dynasty of gods, and a dynasty of demigods, 
and then, some thousand years of human rule, before the 
time of Adam. We find, however, other grandchildren 
of Mizraim,* the Philistines of Scripture, leaving the 
country of the Caphtorimf and spreading over Egypt, the 
island of Crete, and a part of the land of Phoenicia or 
Canaan ; giving their own name to the latter country — - 
Palestine.! It was probably this highly civilized and 
commercial people, who for six hundred and fifty years 
ruled Egypt under the name of the Shepherd Kings 
(Hyksos) — a name given them as a reproach — " for every 
shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians"§ of high- 
caste. 1| Manifestly the kings of Egypt, in the times of 
Abraham, felt no aversion to shepherds, as one sought to 
take to wife Sarah, brought up in a shepherd's tent-TJ 
Two hundred and thirteen years later we find a king of 
the same race on the throne, as we judge from his inter- 
view with Jacob, the prince of shepherds.** About three 
hundred years later a king [dynasty] arose that knew not 



* Note (19). t Note (19). J Note (19). § Gen. sxxvi. 34. 

II Note (20). i Gen. xii. 18, 19. ** Gen. xlvii. 



PHILISTIA AND PHCENICIA. 149 



Joseph ;* that is, acknowledged not the obligation due to 
his memory. This clearly refers to the expulsion of 
that race of kings, who had treated his kindred with 
favor ; that is, the shepherd kings ;f and explains also the 
cause of that persecution which arose against Israel. 
The new rulers, professing the Egyptian superstition, 
turned the whole force of their fanaticism against the 
peaceful shepherds of Goshen. The disastrous effect of 
this upon the commercial interests of the country we can 
at once comprehend, by reference to India, where a race 
abhorrent to the natives, both rule the country and con- 
duct its commerce, and, in their efforts to enrich them- 
selves, enrich the Hindoos. The expulsion of the British, 
we know, would immediately be followed by the persecu- 
tion of all professing their religion, and ultimately, by the 
extinction of all foreign commercial enterprise. Thus was 
it in Egypt. The long-continued and wise administration 
of the " Shepherds" had raised it to the highest pitch of 
prosperity; and during their rule, or immediately suc- 
ceeding it, the greatest of the public works were con- 
structed. J With their expulsion, the decline of prosperity 
began, and its commerce fell into the hands of neighbor- 
ing states. 

During the 430 years that Israel abode in the land 
of Goshen, the five nations of Phoenicia increased so 
rapidly in population and commerce, that ten of the 
twelve spies sent by Moses reported against the practica- 
bility of successfully invading the country, even with an 
army of six hundred thousand fighting men.§ Their 

* Note (21). t Note (22). J Note (23). § Numbers i. 46. 



150 TARSHISH AND ITS COMMERCE. 



report was, that the cities were great and strongly forti- 
fied.* Joshua, indeed, afterwards invaded it with an 
army of only equal number, but still incalculably supe- 
rior, from, the forty years' warfare and discipline of the 
wilderness. Yet the contest was so unequal, he relied 
almost solely upon the interposition of divine power for 
the victory ! f If we adopt the common idea, that the 
family of Mizraim populated Egypt, then it is not difficult 
to believe, that the country of Caphtor J — the first resi- 
dence of the Caphtorim and Philistim — was within, or 
adjacent to, its limits. These nations appear to have 
entered the country of Canaan, and established their five 
lordships there before their own expulsion from Egypt, 
perhaps even before their first conquest of that country. § 
Joshua evidently regarded the country as a part of that 
land, and so apportioned it to the tribes. || They, the 
Philistians, are called by one of the later prophets — 
helpers of Tyre ; ^ and through their country the Tyrian 
commerce, to and from India,** ]3assed, until David, having 
subjugated both Edom and Philistia, diverted this transit 
to his own states. We learn afterwards the servants of 
Hiram navigated to Ophir the ships of Solomon ; supposed 
to have been called Tarshish ships from their great size, 
viz. — ocean-going ships. 

But where and what was Tarshish? For there was 
probably a country as well as a metropolitan city bearing 
that name. It was not Carthage, as the LXX. supposed, 
for Carthage was a Phoenician colony. The Tarshish, 

* Note (24). t Note (25). J Gen. x. 14. 

? Calmet, vol. II. p. 342. || Josh. x. 45, 46, 47. f Jer. xlvii. 4. 
** Note (26). 



TARSHISH. 151 



who gave name to the city and country we have to con- 
sider, was a descendant of Japhet.* In profane history 
the city was called Tartessus,-)- and situated without the 
Straits of Gibraltar — ^^vas probably the ancient Gadir, now 
Cadiz ; J in the country of the Turdetanians,§ the original 
Iberians or Basques, as distinguished from the mixed 
people who were called Celt-Iberians. In the prophet 
Ezekiel's enumeration of the customers of Tyre, he places 
this city in the first rank, " by reason of the multitude 
of all kinds of riches, silver, iron, tin, and lead." || It is 
the general notion that the tin which Tarshish brought to 
Tyre came from Cornwall in England, as until a late day 
only has it been found elsewhere.^ To procure this 
metal, so important to the world before the process of 
hardening brass had been lost,** arose the early naviga- 
tion of the Celts, of civilized Iberia, to the barbarous 
country of Britain ! It seems like romance to talk of 
huge ships from Tarshish, navigating the ocean in the 
times of the Pharaohs,ff and populating Britain and 
Ireland, from the then over populous Spain. But we have, 
in proof of the large ships of that remote era, a painting 
in the tomb of Rameses IV., celebrating a victory obtained 
by his galleys over a fleet of vessels, propelled by sails, 
without the aid of oars,JJ while in the people themselves 
lies the evidence of a very remote migration from Spain 
to Britain and Ireland. The Celts of those islands are to 
this day recognised as brethren by the Basques or people 
of Biscay,§§ viz., as Celt-Iberians ; and, as such, admitted 

* Gen. X. 4. f Herod. I. c. xliii. % Note (27). § Note (28). 

II Ezek. xxyii. 12. ^ Note (29). ** Note (30). 

ft Note (31). $t Note (32). U Note (33). 



152 RELIGION OF TARSHISH. 



to the enjoyment of the fueros of the provinces,* from 
which Spaniards are excluded. 

We have already ventured to suggest a common idolatry 
among all the highly commercial nations of antiquity. 
They all appear to have derived their gods from India; 
the eastern starting point of commerce, as Tartessa was 
its western. But as we journey westward, each nation 
adds new titles, and varies its forms of worship. Thus, 
Egypt, Philistia, and Phoenicia have the same deities in 
fact. But Egypt alone used living emblems to represent 
them, and adopted the Indian system of caste. f The 
heroes of Egypt are the demigods of Phoenicia ; nor is it 
straining a point to add of Tarshish, since the temple 
there of Hercules was so famous, that, in Grecian fable, 
the pillars which adorned it were synonymous with the 
rock of Gibraltar and its counterpart on the African coast 
(Calpe and Abyla) .J In the next chapter we will give the 
probable reason for the deification of this Hercules at 
Tartessa. Three of these nations indulged in the orgies 
of Priapus (Bacchus) . " They went to Baal Peor, and 
separated themselves to that shame." § The serpent too, 
was, to them all, the emblem of fruitfulness,|| while ano- 
ther tale reminds us that the heathen crosses of Ireland 
were covered with elaborate sculptures of serpents and 
turtles, which the pious zeal of Saint Patrick caused to 
be effaced.^ 

. Among the Egyptian mysteries, the Latin cross was 
placed beneath the monogram of the moon, thus 9 ; an 

* Note (34) . t Note (35). % Note (36). 

I Hosea x. 10. || Note (37). f Note (38). 



THE ANCIENT MAGNETIC CROSS. 



153 



appropriate position for her emblem, when Astarte (Ashte- 
roth) personifies her.* But, among the Phoenicians, whose 
principal employment was commerce, that goddess is re- 
presented standing on a galley, her right hand j)ointing to 
the prow, while her left grasps the staff of a Latin cross — 
the magnetic compass of antiquity .f Hercules, emblema- 
tized by the loadstone, claimed also a position among the 
gods, and took precedence of Apollo, the representative 
of the sun ; thus, Hercules- Apollo, J though at first only a 
demigod — an Egyptian hero — or canonized king.§ In the 
interchange of commerce and of deities, between the 
x^ssyrians and Phoenicians, we find Astarte, or Ashte- 
roth, an object of worship at Nineveh. The three em- 
blems on her medals, a star, a crescent, and a cross, adorn 
the neck of a king as there portrayed in the act of wor- 
shipping the Queen of Heaven. || We find the cross like- 
wise attached to a necklace, or collar, in the dress of the 
oriental prisoners on an Egyptian ruin of the time of 
Rameses II., fifteen centuries before the Christian era.*|l" 
The mariner's magnetic cross of ancient times is thus 





f COINS FROM CALMET, NO. 6. PLATE CXL. AND PLATE XYI. 



* Note (39). 
II Note (42). 



t Note (40). g Note (41). 

i[ See Wilkinson-, I., p. 376. 



154 THE CROSS AN EMBLEM OF ASHTEROTH. 



described by Boulak Kibdjalick, an Arabian author of the 
thirteenth century (1242).* " They take a cup of water 
[the cup of Apollo, called also that of Hercules],-}- which 
they shelter from the wind. They then take a needle 
[the arrow of Apollo or of Abaris], which they fix in a 
peg of wood [reed] or a straw, so as to form a cross. 
They then take the magnes [magnet] and turn round for 
some time above the cup ; moving from left to right, the 
needle following. They then withdraw the ynagnes [the 
stone of Hercules], after which the needle stands still, 
and points north and south."^ Whether a permanently 
polarized needle was an improvement of the Chinese or 
Phoenicians, is of little importance ; for purposes of ado- 
ration, the original form would most naturally be used, as 
it would be considered the most venerable. 

We have called attention to the prominency of the 
cross among the emblems of the favorite goddess of the 
Phoenicians, Astarte ; as this dispels one of the mysteries 
connected with the Central American ruins. Occupying 
a significant position among Egyptian mysteries, that 
symbol is the leading emblem on Phoenician medals also, 
both ancient and modern ; on those bearing inscriptions 
in the Sidonian character, on those inscribed in Greek 
too, and even in Latin — when medals of the Syro-Phoeni- 
cians. On one of these coins Calmet remarks as fol- 
lows : — '' Nos. 2-4, medals of Sidon, the inscription in 
Greek, ' The Sidonian Goddess,' agrees exactly with the 
appellation — 1 Kings v. 5, 33, ^ Ashteroth, goddess of the 

* Note (43) t Note (44). 

X Pillars of Hercules, vol. I., page 144. 



TYRE THE PARIS OF ANTIQUITY. 155 



Sidonians.' No. i, ' Astarte holding the cross, standing on 
a ship, the measure on her head. 12, Astarte standing in 
her temple holding the long cross in her hand. An altar 
burning before the temple,' * &c. More illustrations are 
needless, as the foregoing sufficiently establish our point, 
that the Latin cross was a religious emblem of the Phoeni- 
cians — typical of the 'Queen of Heaven.'"-]- To show 
his contempt for this Phoenician Yenus,J Alexander the 
Great ordered two thousand of the principal citizens of 
Tyre to be executed upon this, her emblem ! From that 
time, it seems to have been a practice among the oriental 
Greeks, to crucify the basest of malefactors. 

The reader will doubtless excuse us for turning aside 
here to notice a striking similarity in the situation of the 
Israelites, the Protestants of antiquity, and ourselves, the 
Protestants of the present. The adoration of the cross, 
and the Queen of Heaven, was an abomination to them, 
as it is to us ; and they were, as we are, under a divine 
prohibition to make no similitude. But their hewers of 
wood and drawers of water, as the Celts among us, adored 
this emblem, and also the Queen of Heaven, which fami- 
liarized them to it. Tyre was the Paris of antiquity, the 
centre of voluptuousness, the regulator of fashions, the 
seat of gentility, and there the neighboring people learned 
what constituted the genteel in religion — to combine 
voluptuousness and faith in the sensuous presentation of 
spiritual truths. There, too, the aspiring were taught to 
despise the simple forms of their own country, and to 
adore the cross and Queen of Heaven. From the time 

* Calmet, vol. II., pp. 606-7. f Note (45). J Note (46). 



156 CAUSES OF DECLINE OF ANCIENT NATIONS. 



of Solomon,* indeed from the time of Joshua, this ado- 
ration, the building of high places,f and the setting up of 
her emblem, were the besetting sins of Israel. So is it 
to those classes among us, who find a passage to heaven 
like the needle's eye. Tacitus has been laughed at, by all 
the scholiasts | of the last five hundred years, for accusing 
the Jews of worshipping an ass ; and yet modern inves- 
tigation has established the charge. A class of Jews, who 
borrowed their religious ideas from Tyre, adored, in the 
last phase of their apostacy, that sentimental animal, the 
jackass ! § The Madonna and Child are associated with 
the donkey upon one of the latest medals of Astarte ; a 
medal dating long after the Christian era!l| Whether, 
among the improvements now going on in fashionable 
circles, the jackass will be again introduced, to excite the 
devotional sentiments of worshippers, is a question for the 
future to determine ! It is the last phase of sentiment ! 

From the time of Noah a series of civilized nations had 
been growing, that, at the end of a thousand years, at- 
tained a point of commercial prosperity hardly reached 
by modern races. Nineveh multiplied her merchants 
above the stars.^ Egypt, Philistia, and Phoenicia, crowded 
with millions of civilized inhabitants, were also utterly- 
corrupted by this golden era. The Almighty could endure 
no longer, and the decree went forth for their extermi- 
nation. Wars, from that time, are rather the rule than 
the exception. The Phoenicians, who seem to have been 
sinners above the rest, were the first to feel the blow, — 

* Note (47). t Truncated pyramids? % Note (48). 

I Note (49). il Note (50). f Nahum iii. 16. 



INFANT SACRIFICE. 157 



"For," saith Moses, "every abomination to the Lord 
which he hateth have they done unto their gods; for 
even their sons and their daughters have they burnt in 
the fire to their gods."* Thus buman sacrifice was the 
assigned cause for that indiscriminate slaughter of both 
the men and women of Canaan by the Israelites. 

The sacrifices to Molech, or Saturn, were the remarka- 
ble features of Phoenician worship. These sacrifices were 
the immolation, in a furnace placed at the feet of a bronze 
statue, or beneath the mask of Saturn, of the choicest 
infants of the nation. This form of apostacy was con- 
stantly taken by the Jews : even their kings made their 
children to pass through the fire to Molech.f This wor- 
ship of Saturn is distinctly to be recognised among the 
ruins of Palenque. It is there portrayed upon the walls.| 
We have there the hideous mask of that deity ; the eyes 
widely expanded, the tongue hanging out, as thirsting for 
victims. Four persons are represented in connection with 
this mask. The principal, an old priest, in the act of 
offering a child is opposite a younger ofiicial, who is also 
making an offering ; behind the elder stands a trumpeter, 
or an old man blowing some instrument; behind the 
other, a female spectator, taking so lively an interest in 
the proceeding as to suggest she may be the mother of 
the victim. § The structure called the House of the 
Pigeons, at Uxmal, has this hideous masked face over 
each doorway, surmounted by an elaborate head-dress. || 

* Deut. xii. 31. f 2 Kings xxii. 6 ; 2 Kings xvi. 3. J Note (51). 

§ For a description of the offering above referred to, see Stephens, vol. II., 
page 352. 

II Stephens's Yucatan, vol. I., page 306. 



158 THE PHffiNICIAN MADONNA AT PALENQUE. 



The large circular stone block, now at the city of Mexico, 
and known as the Calendar Stone, has this also for its 
central ornament* There is likewise a painting on the 
ruins, near the Hacienda of Tankuche, of another of 
these masks,f and others elsewhere, but these are suffi- 
cient to identify the above-mentioned edifices with the 
worship of Saturn. 

By reference to antique coins and medals we have 
shown the cross was the emblem of the " Queen of Heaven" 
— the Astarte of the Canaanites or Phoenicians. That 
she was a favorite deity is clearly evident, and the seduc- 
tions of her worship, as clearly enticed the Jews from the 
service of their God, and eventually occasioned, the de- 
struction of their Holy City .J After this goddess had 
furnished the Greeks and Romans with models for both 
their Venus and Ceres,§ according to her different attri- 
butes, we find her, in her last phase, giving to baptized 
Rome her Madonna. Now, if we turn to the ruins on 
this side the ocean, we find, at Palenque, one having 
broad entablatures covered with hieroglyphics ; there, on 
each of the four square columns, or jambs between the 
doors, is moulded in stucco the figure of a female holding 
a child on her left hand and arm, in the same manner as 
Astarte aj>pears on the Sidonian medals. Dupaix thus 
describes them:|| "They [the four females represented 
on the square columns] are apparently absorbed in devo- 
tion, and the faces of all are turned towards the central 
sanctuary. Two are placed on each side, holding in one 



* Note (52). t Yucatan, vol. I., pp. 205, 306. % Jeremiah -si 
§ Note (53). II Vol. VI. page 499. 



SACRIFICING INFANTS TO THE CROSS. 159 



hand a gift, with the other supporting a child, offering it 
as it were to the law !" It may be added, that the heads 
of these figures are covered with allegorical devices, as is 
the case with almost all those yet found there. 

The commonest emblem on these remains is the cross. 
Dupaix, who is anxious to vindicate the Latin cross from 
all connection with infant sacrifice, says : " It is never 
plain, but loaded with ornament." At Mitla we have the 
Maltese cross j* and at other places divers varieties of 
the Greek cross, mentioned by him, and represented on 
the plates of his draftsman, Castanada.f At Palenque 
the representation of a cross, is so prominent as to 
give the ruined building in which it is found, the name 
of La Cruz. The figures already described as offering a 
sacrifice to Molech, are there represented presenting a 
child to the cross.f Dupaix, an ardent Romanist, thus 
describes the scene : " Beside it [the cross] stand four 
grave personages, who contemplate it with an air of deep 
veneration. The tallest of them is offering to it with 
upraised hands a child of singular shape, apparently a 
new-born infant; admiration is depicted in the counte- 
nances of the others. Of the two figures placed in the 
background, one appears to be that of a man bending 
under the weight of years, apparently in the act of blow- 
ing a musical instrument, which he holds with both hands 
to his mouth. The last personage in this group is a grave 
and majestic figure, apparently an admiring spectator." J 
Was this last intended for the mother ? 

» Note (54). t Note (54). 

X Lord Kingsborough, vol. VI.,p. 481. 



160 



STATUE OF ASTARTE RECOGNISED. 




IKPANT SACRIFICE. 



Thus far had we carried the argument, but had here 
been compelled to stop, for want of further evidence ; and 
the very stereotype plate that at first occupied this page, 
expressed our regrets that we were not able more com- 
pletely to identify the Palenque statue as Hercules. At 
our publishers', however, the eyes of that distinguished 
Orientalist, the Rev. Mr. Osborn, chanced to fall upon a 
proof of the American goddess in the fourth note to this 
chapter, which he at once recognised as Astarte, repre- 



MEDALLION FOUND — TURTLES AT PALENQUE. 161 



sented according to an antique pattern. Her head-dress, 
he insisted, was in the ancient form of the mural crown, 
without the crescent, the prototype of that worn by 
Diana of the Ephesians, and so too, he insisted, was her 
necklace of "two rows." In support of his position, 
he referred to the late discoveries made in the region 
beyond Tiberias, and to divers others of a recent date, 
while he corroborated our theory of the Palenque statue. 

There are, also, abundant secondary Phoenician re- 
semblances. Among the coins of Tyre are two upon 
which the serpent is the prominent figure. On one it 
encircles a large egg ; on the other, it is coiled around a 
tree. In the work of Dupaix, there is the representation 
of a copper medallion, already mentioned, purporting to 
have been found at Palenque ; on one side of which is a 
tree, with a scaly serpent entwining itself around the 
trunk.* Of the prominent position occupied by the ser- 
pent throughout, we have already spoken in discussing 
Egyptian analogies. 

The tortoise was a symbol of the Tyrian colony of 
Thebes, in Greece. And these two, the serpent and the 
turtle, are ever recurring emblems upon American ruins. 
At Uxmal is a building called " The House of the Tur- 
tles," from a head or row of tortoises around the cornice.f 
Divers turtles in stone have been also discovered among 
them. In a large box filled with terra cotta antiques once 
offered to the author, perhaps three-fourths of the whole 



* See Castanada's copy in vol. IV., L. 2, pict. 2, of Lord Kingsborough. 
For Dupaix' description, see vol. VI., page 475. Same, 
f Yucatan, vol. I., page 184. 

11 



162 EIVER WALL — ALLEGED PHCENICIAN MS. 



collection was made up of serpents and turtles, with alle- 
gorical variations. 

We omitted to notice, in its proper place, the Phoeni- 
cian resemblance of the river wall of Copan. The reader 
will recollect that the great pyramid of Copan rests, or 
rather abuts, against a river wall between one hundred 
and thirty and one hundred and fifty feet in height ; a 
counterpart of the famous sea-wall of Tyre. 

The Phoenician origin of these remains has always been 
a popular theory among Spaniards. But the way they 
proceed to its proof, is in keeping with their usual prac- 
tice. They produced the coiyy of an apparently antique 
MS. in strange characters, which, when deciphered, estab- 
lished the Phoenician origin and character of the Central 
American Empire. The non-appearance of the original, 
was accounted for in the same manner as that of the 
Aztec picture writings — an over zealous bishop had com- 
mitted it to the flames ! This time it was not the re- 
doubtable Zumarraga, but a bishop of Chiapa.* The 
story is a fabrication out of the whole cloth, yet it serves 
to show, that at the time of this pretended copy, there was 
a general opinion prevalent, among the intelligent portion 
of the population of New Spain, favorable to this belief. 
The world must have been prepared for such an announce- 
ment, or so transparent an imposition could not have 
obtained currency. Like the Mexican picture records, 
the fictions of Cortez had prepared mankind for the dis- 
covery of Indian evidences, so that when the Monk Pietro 
produced his copies, thirty years after the conquest, and 

* Note (56). 



RECAPITULATIOlSr. 163 



announced 'the burning of their originals, the world ac- 
cepted the last as true, and paid a handsome price for the 
imposition. 

Describing the style of architecture exhibited by the 
ruins, Stephens calls it Greek antique. But Grecque 
antique is Theban — Etruscan — Phoenician — Cyclopean — 
like Mycenge and Argos. The work is certainly equal to 
the best specimens o^ antique, or Phoenician art. The cross, 
as a religious emblem, is Phoenician. The offering of 
infants to Saturn is Phoenician too ; as are also the orgies 
of Baal-peor or Priapus, the Bacchus of Greece and Rome. 
The statue found among the ruins of Palenque, is claimed 
by some to be the tutelary divinity of the city, and, from 
the resemblance of the symbol it presses to its breast to 
the mural crown of the Phoenicians,* to be that of Her- 
cules also. We admit the proof of this important link 
is incomplete. There are the same emblems of civil life 
too, and, in addition, the serpent, the tortoise, and a one- 
ness of architecture and art, besides other resemblances 
supposed to have been held in common with the Egyp- 
tians, tools and weapons of bronze. But still an indispu- 
table Hercules is wanting, though Mr. Osborn again 
comes to our aid. The next point is the non-discovery of 
implements of steel or iron. Had they been found, the 
fact would have destroyed the Phoenician analogies. For 
none have been met with, of the corresponding era, in 
Egypt. The finest works of its sculpture, like those of 
Central America, were evidently executed with bronze 
tools, hardened by some now unknown agency. 

* Note (57). 



164 BRONZE TOOLS AND WEAPONS. 



So many ages have passed since brazen swords,* dag- 
gers,-}" and spears were used by civilized nations, we are 
apt to consider their employment an evidence of barbar- 
ism.J Though the Greeks at the siege of Troy may have 
been barbarians, other nations who used bronze weapons 
were not. And it must be recollected that, for at least 
a thousand years before, bronze performed all those duties 
to which we now apply steel, by the most polished of 
all ancient nations, the Egyptians, in their Augustan age. 
Travellers and philosophers are alike perplexed by its 
successful use in the working of granite and porphyry, on 
either side of the Atlantic. Wilkinson § has made a most 
valuable suggestion, which in part, but only in part, re- 
moves the difficulty. Picking up a bronze chisel, among 
the granite scales in an unfinished tomb at Thebes, he 
found the head had been battered by the mallet, while the 
edge remained uninjured, though soft as ordinary bronze. 
Thereupon he suggests, that the elaborate sculptures of 
this people, must have been executed by the process known 
to us as engraving. 1 1 He produces also pretty satisfactory 
evidence of the employment of emery, in some portions of 
their work. Could this be proved, it would account for 
the execution of much, which cannot be now done by any 
known method. But the sword, the spear-head, the adze, 
and the hatchet, could hardly have been aided in their 
work by emery ! Still, time, in the revolution of so many 
centuries, may have taken from these weapons and tools 
that quality of extreme hardness, which they must have 
once possessed. So, too, the bronze hatchets found by the 

* Note (58). t Note (59). t Note (60). § Note (61). || Note (62). 



A RETROSPECT OF ANTIQUITY. 165 



first Spaniards in the hands of savages, near to the re- 
mains at Cozumal, may once have been a good substitute 
for steel. 

The difference in price between bronze and iron must 
have early recommended the substitution of the latter. 
But until its conversion into steel had been discovered, it 
could have been of little use in war or art. With 
bronze every plan that could save the wear of such costly 
implements would be adopted. This will account for the 
common Indian stone wedges and hatchets at Mitla, 
beside others of copper [bronze].* May not this account 
also for the appearance of a like phenomenon in the north 
of Europe ? The common weapons of an Indian are 
represented in the sculpture at Kaba in Yucatan.-j- The 
figure there is a trophy, or was designed to represent a 
savage. Yet the work upon it plainly indicates, the artist 
did not alone use the implements of savages, but possessed 
some metallic substance, capable of as keen an edge, as any 
we can produce.| Far from being barbarians, we find them 
skilled even in the art of fortification, their works near 
Mitla, exhibiting the covering angles of an enclosing wall, 
not surpassed in modern structures of the sort, as is shown 
by the drawing of Castanada.§ 

Let us now take a retrospect of that commercial world 
we have evoked from the tombs and ruins of a remote 
antiquity. Starting with the civilization acquired from 
the family of Noah, in the long period of a thousand 
years, the nations ran a course of material prosperity, so 
successful, that, a single one of the family, Egypt, was 

* Note (63). t Yucatan, vol. I., page 413. J Note (64). g Note (65). 



166 IMMENSE POPULATION OF ANCIENT CITIES. 



able, out of the surplus revenues of a single reign, to erect 
the great pyramid.* The five kindred nations of Canaan — 
a land of merchants or traders f — crowded their small 
country with walled cities ; fortified in anticipation of the 
coming hosts of Israel. Edom excavated others in the 
rocks, while the Philistians strengthened themselves to 
resist Joshua. In Italy, the Etruscans, children of Japhet, 
Turdetani, then created those memorials of their attain- 
ments in art — the vases that now defy competition. 
Then the Celts and Turdetani, [Celt-Iberians,] were so 
numerous they sent forth distant colonies in ocean-ships, 
and brought from Britain the tin of Phoenician, and 
Egyptian manufacture,^ that, in the ruins of Nineveh, w^e 
find commingled with Chinese articles. Immense as 
are the commercial centres of modern times, they can 
hardly have equalled those of antiquity. " When Nine- 
veh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey," 
ships crowded her quays from India and China, while 
caravans from Damascus and Aleppo, loaded with the 
merchandise of Tyre and Egypt, filled her streets, and 
jostled with others from Bactria, north and east. Yet 
was there a city greater even than Nineveh : No 
[Thebes ?] in Egypt ; so lordly as to win the title of popu- 
lous even there.§ Then each of the five cities of Philistia 
was in itself a lordship — unitedly they subjugated Israel, 
and possessed Cyprus and Crete. What then was India, 
when these were mere commercial dependencies to which 
she had communicated their wealth, their religion, and 

* Note (66). f A definition of the word Canaan. 

X Note (67). 2 Nahum iii. 8. 



ANCIENT EOUTES OF COMMERCE. 167 



even the form and pattern of their temples ? * This was the 
condition of civilization in the golden age — that era when 
Central America was at the zenith of her prosperity — 
Palenque even being equal to Thebes in extent.f 

It is impossible to explain away the vast resources of 
antiquity by averring that those structures, the ruins of 
which astonish us now, were but the fruits of despotism, 
and the product of slave labor. It is not despotism alone, 
or slaves laboring without wages. For they eat, they con- 
sume, and they waste. Slave is the most expensive of all 
labor ; J and despotism finds its security in the lightness of 
the public burdens. The lands of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and 
Central America are the same now as when they sustained 
a population almost incredible, yet are they waste. Com- 
merce or the systematic exchange of the commodities of 
different and distant portions of the earth, can alone solve 
these mysteries. Without commerce, the richest produc- 
tions of the earth rot — even gold is valueless without a 
market. § 

When India, China, Japan, and the Islands of the 
Eastern Sea were the attractive points of ancient com- 
merce, was it always carried on by the hazardous route 
of the Red Sea, and the wider ocean, or by that of the 
Tigris and Euphrates ? The course of the trade-wind to 
America, was most likely adopted. Merchandise un- 
laden in a harbor of the Caribbean Sea had but a short 
transit to the noble bay of Fonseca on the Pacific. Five 
hundred years of prosperous commerce with the Mediterra- 

« Note (68). t Note (69). J Kote (70). 'i Note (71). 



168 PROBABLE CAUSES OF EXTINCTION. 



iiean and with India otherwise hardly accounts for the 
magnitude of the thirty ruined cities, already discovered 
in Yucatan alone. And there may lie buried in its forests, 
and as yet undiscovered, even others, greater and more 
numerous. But whence came the untold millions that 
peopled that region ? They have so utterly perished as 
to be beyond the reach of tradition by at least a thousand 
years. Is their extinction that of the races of ancient 
Egypt, Phoenicia, Mesopotamia, Spain, and Italy? "Was 
it the consequence of their overthrow, or the effects of 
climate ? 

On the eastern continent a prospering commerce fur- 
nished the revenues to set up and sustain immense armies, 
and kept alive those exterminating wars, which finally 
destroyed it and reduced the world to barbarism — a bar- 
barism so profound, too, as would forbid our belief in the 
existence of kingdoms and empires highly civilized, if it 
were not for their epitaphs so unmistakably written upon 
their tombs, or sculptured in the ruins of their public 
edifices. Our historic period reaches only to the verge of 
that era of decline and subjugation — to the time, when 
the re-colonization of Greece had commenced. The 
Greeks were a people whose ideas of commerce extended 
only to a row-boat.* Their successors, the Komans, 
had but one passion — and war, not commerce, was that 
one. Yet the freedom of intercourse between province 
and province of their vast empire, and the excellence of 
their military roads, gave to trade an internal expansion 

* Note (72). 



EXTINCTION OF EXOTICS. 169 



unknown in any other era. But, though it furnished the 
sinews of Roman valor, it did not extend, save in one 
direction, beyond the hmits of the empire ; viz., to India. 
The intercourse with Central America must have declined 
with the decline of oriental kingdoms, and ceased with 
the extinction of those nations and races with whom it 
originated. A natural law, dormant during the many 
ages of active intercourse and colonization, began to mani- 
fest itself among the colonial population of Central 
America, as soon as all connection with the old world 
ceased. Extinction is the doom of every immigrant 
population in an uncongenial climate (habitat), when 
migration ceases to keep up and renew the original stock. 
Intermarriage with the aborigines may have hastened 
the work of decay, by producing mongrels, abhorrent and 
exceptional, to the laws of our being. Colonists, too, from 
Central America, may have wandered over the whole of 
our continent, building here and there truncated pyra- 
mids, such as we find, not of hewn stone, but of earth, in 
which to bury their dead. But the law applied alike to 
them as to their Central American ancestors, and they 
too perished, leaving no other memorial than these burial 
mounds contain. Doubtless the Indians borrowed this 
system of interment, without ceasing to be Indians. At 
least such is our solution of the Central American enigma. 
Let us examine the apparent objections to this common 
sense view of it. 

It is customary to ascribe to the Phoenician colony at 
Thebes, in Boeotia, the origin of the Grecque antique in 



170 GREEK CIVILIZATION ORIENTAL. 



architecture and in art — that is, to admit its Phoenician 
origin. But modern Greek art and architecture, it now 
appears, were borrowed also.* We have Doric columns 
in Central America,f and Ionic in the ruins of Nineveh. J 
Thus what we have been accustomed to consider as pecu- 
liar to Grecian art, is, after all, but a copy from barbaric 
orio-inals. The Greeks were indeed but imitators of orien- 
tal creations. Their mythology, even was foreign,§ and, 
that they could not comprehend, they expressed in myths 
and fables. The greatest of Egyptian heroes, and patron 
of Phoenician commerce, they represented as a demigod, 
armed with a club, wandering through the world in 
search of adventure. His twelve divisions of the zodiac 
are fabled as his labors, says the scholiast on Hesiod.|| 
The two pillars that adorned his temples in oriental 
worship are typified by them as two mountain peaks — 
Calpe and Abyla — and the Egyptian custom of granting 
or refusing the rights of sepulture, becomes in their hands 
the fabled court of Pluto. ^ 

The Greeks appear to have been selected from their 
imitative powers, to perpetuate such of the. arts and civi- 
lization of the elder world, as were to be preserved from 
that decree of extermination, pronounced by the Almighty 
against its nations. Commerce had been the chief cause 
of the total demoralization of antiquity, and of this, they 
were permitted to preserve only a boat navigation. They 
heard indeed of the stone of Hercules, of the cup of Aby- 

* Note (73). t Note (74). J Note (75). 

§ Note (76). II Note (77). T[ Note (78). 



GREEK IGNOEANCE OF ANTIQUITY. 171 



ris, and of the arrow of Apollo, but they little dreamed 
that under these myths lay hidden, the compass of the 
ocean mariner. They had heard too of the Atlantis,* 
but not of the vast and distant country it personified. 
The mysteries of Egyptian worship and Phoenician com- 
merce were shrouded in Grecian fable. Whatever the 
Greeks imperfectly comprehended of the affairs of other 
nations they thus expressed. Glimmerings of antiquity, 
we may obtain from Grecian sources, but nothing more. 
For the rest, we are indebted to records, graven on 
the walls of tombs, on broken monuments, and ruined 
temples. 

" Art thou an honest pirate or an enemy that visits our 
shores?" said an heroic Greek to his youthful visitor. 
From such, the ancients studiously concealed, not only the 
extent and routes of their commerce, but the use of that 
mysterious power which directed their ships across the 
ocean. A nation who considered piracy a lawful calling, 
were certainly but dangerous neighbors. Though the 
Greeks undoubtedly confined their imperfect navigation 
to the internal seas, that argues little against a pre-exist- 
ing outside commerce. The Romans, in arts and com- 
merce were their imitators, and when they fell, another 
thousand years of barbarism passed, before the Tartar 
races, that had repeopled Europe, turned their attention 
to navigation. And yet, with little more than three 
hundred years of experience, how mighty are the revolu- 
tions and transformations commerce has produced ! When 

* Note (79). 



172 DECAY OF RACES. 



our experience has extended through as many centuries 
as that of the elder races of mankind, we may judge 
them by our own knowledge, instead of through that of 
the Greeks and Latins. 

Races of men, like the trees of the forest, have their 
beginnings, their maturity, and their decline. Some of 
soft and delicate fibre, are rajoid, both in growth and in 
decay. Others, as the oak, of slower rise, are firm of 
texture, and of long endurance. Some are the lignum 
viice or sapote — ^lasting as the lintels in the ruined temples 
of Yucatan. Our generations correspond to the forest 
products. Grafting and moculation may sometimes im- 
prove the quality of the crop, but they cannot resuscitate 
an exhausted trunk. That pseudo-philosophy which 
encouraged the immixture of races has had its day. It 
flourished once in spite of the living argument our own 
quadroons, and the mingled blood of Spanish-America, 
furnished against it. Each continent would seem to hold 
a common hive of nationalities. In America it is found 
upon the high table-lands of the central plateau ; * from 
thence migration appears to have flowed eastward, west- 
ward, and southward. From the table-lands of central 
and eastern Asia, in like manner, sprang the races and 
migrations that have successively peopled Europe and 
western Asia. Africa alone appears exceptional. Its 
various tribes, as repugnant to others as divided among 
themselves, form the enigma of ethnology. The Kabils, 
the Mauritanians [Berbers], the Nubians, Abj'ssinians, 

* Note (80). 



UNT^ILLING WITNESSES SELECTED. 173 



Bushmen [Pigmies],* Kromen, Negroes, CafFers, Hotten- 
tots, &c., refute the idea of a common parentage since the 
original dispersion.f This miracle is the result of a 
peculiar elemental condition, continued through several 
thousands of years. 

We now presume we have sufficiently vindicated, the 
antiquity, oriental origin, and commercial character of the 
extinct empire of Central America, and, that we have 
accounted for its decay and ultimate extinction. Those 
who have argued in favor of a North American origin for 
these ruins, we have summoned as our witnesses, and, 
from a mass of facts collected by them, proved the oppo- 
site to their inferences. Proving our case by such testi- 
mony, we have admitted their statement of fact, only 
rejecting their conclusions. On their showing we rest 
our cause, though we have yet stronger evidence, objec- 
tional perhaps on the score of prejudice, to those seeking 
cause of cavil. 

After a very superficial view of some outlying portions 
of these ruins, we ventured to afiirm, contrary to received 
notions, that they were extremely ancient, and had 
existed for thousands of years.J At that time, we had 
not sufficientl}^ investigated the question, and were un- 
prepared to abandon the common belief in their aboriginal 
origin. The labor necessary to the production of this 
chapter, has not only carried conviction to the mind of its 
author, but brought together a mass of testimony, beyond 

* Note (81). t Note (82). t Note (83). 



174 WHY THE VISIT OF THE APOSTLE INVENTED. 



the reach of doubt — testimony, sufficient to prove a tradi- 
tional title in a court of justice — an Egyptian title, to 
Central American civilization, and a Phoenician title, to 
the religion, that at that early period was dominant on this 
continent, under the influence of eastern colonies, while it 
fully explains the necessity the Eomanists were under of 
inventing the fabulous mission of the Apostle Thomas to 
account for the religious emblems which they recognised 
as belonging to their own superstition. Fragments of this 
civilization, like waifs from a foundered ship, are scattered 
over North America, and not unfrequently found as 
trophies in the more recent funeral mounds of our 
Indians.* The aborigines thus incidentally aided in 
preserving to us evidence that a people of Roman linea- 
ments,-]- extended their dominion as far north, as the plains 
of the Anahuac, and the valley of Mexico.^ 

We commenced this investigation confining ourselves 
to strict proof, and have therefore foregone every oppor- 
tunity of indulging in the curious speculations that natu- 
rally arise, when such a mass of testimony is before us, 
upon the two important points — of the great antiquity of 
these ruins, and their indisputable oriental origin. It has 
not been proved, beyond a doubt, that the object in the 
right hand of the Palenque statue, was a mural crown. 
Had it been so, we should have insisted, that the statue 
itself, was the Phoenician Hercules — Malcroth, Prince 
[patron] of the city. And, that if the Hebraic form was 

* Note (84). t Note (85). % Note (86). 



PRIORITY OF SAILING VESSELS TO GALLEYS. 175 



used in his adoration, if practised there, it could not fail 
to have exerted a lasting; influence upon the surrounding 
Indian tribes. 

A difficulty besets us in the outstart, when we attempt 
to connect this antique people with the classic era. It is 
not so much the want of the mariner's compass, among 
the Greeks and Romans, as the non-existence among them, 
of vessels fitted for ocean navigation, that we have to 
overcome. Their galleys were notoriously incapable of 
the voyage — a distance of three thousand three hundred 
miles from the Canary Islands. Their crews, " ten men 
to a ton,"'=' made the transit impossible to them. The 
tombs of the Pharaohs have solved this difficulty. There 
we find ships of commerce — ships propelled by sails alone. 
They were then in existence before the time of Moses, 
and, consequently, hundreds of years before the Greeks 
had a national existence. For purposes of piracy or war, 
the galley perhaps surpassed the sailing vessel, and when 
war usurped the place of commerce, the oar superseded 
the sail. Yet the ship may have rode triumphantly upon 
the ocean, centuries after the galley had driven it from 
the internal seas. But, as soon as ships, propelled by the 
wind alone, disappeared from the coasts of Spain and Gaul, 
the pathways of the ocean were lost, and the empire 
beyond the seas, remembered only as a tale of the harha- 
rians. 

There are in every community those, who take an array 

* Note (87). 



176 THE PROPER JUDGES OF EVIDENCE. 



of great names, rather than evidence, for the foundation 
of their behef There are those too, who judge a work 
only by the elegance with which its periods are strung 
together. And, besides these two, we have to encounter 
also the opposition of savans — men who live and judge 
the outside world through the medium of books alone. 
These hold as of no account, all but Greece and Rome, 
and receive no idea of antiquity that does not come 
through them. For any, then, too wise to learn or too 
thoughtless to inquire, this chapter is not designed. Let 
those, alone, who subject their knowledge to the ordeal of 
reason and common sense, judge, if there is reasonable 
ground, to doubt, the foreign origin of these American 
ruins. Investigation is daily wiping out, one after ano- 
ther, the popular theories which our ignorance adopted. 
As the foundations of these air structures melt away, 
those who dwelt in them may be heard anathematizing 
innovators. Many there are, who have dealt in Spanish 
romances, supposing them to be history; and these are 
slow to abandon their delusions. At enormous expense 
they have gathered volumes of authorities; will they 
readily admit them to be cheats and counterfeits ? They 
grudge the time too they have spent in their perusal ; and 
are loth, as well they may be, to lose it. But individual 
loss and injury is perhaps inevitable in the search after 
truth. Men cannot be held down to the theories of bar- 
barism. These must give way to knowledge, or the 
intelligent, as in Roman Catholic countries, be driven to 
infidelity. 



THE INCONGRUITY OF RACES. 177 



THE INCONGRUITY OF RACES. 

The advantages arising from transplanting the human race, as well as 
vegetables and plants, are manifestly great. But transplanting should never 
be confounded with intermixing tribes, whether they be human, or of the 
lower animals, or of plants. When God, in his infinite wisdom, saw fit to 
choose out a family, that he destined to continue for thousands of years, He 
transplanted it into a new soil and climate, and subjected it to divers migra- 
tions. First it went down into Egypt, and then, " with a high hand and an out- 
stretched arm," He brought it up out of JEgypt, and after a sojourn of forty 
years in the wilderness. He re-established it in the land of Canaan. This is 
the origin of the most perfectly developed race of the present time. Whether 
in the tropics, or in the most northern latitudes, the Jew is the same intellec- 
tual and physical man, and carries about with him the indelible marks of a 
descendant of the patriarchs, who were commanded not to intermarry with 
the people among whom they dwelt. The Jew may wander, and sojourn in 
strange lands, but he cherishes with national pride the blood of Abraham, 
which he insists, still flows in his veins, and he is most careful, of all things, 
to transmit it pure to his children. Though Canaan abounded with frag- 
ments of nationalities, his boast is that his blood is not intermixed with any 
of them. To the history of the Jews we might add the experience of the 
Franciscan missionaries of California, that for a healthy offspring a man must 
marry among his own clan. 

The constant complaints we hear of the deterioration of imported animals, 
of choice breeds, is the result of a disregard of this law of propagation. The 
importations of Merino sheep, and afterward of the Saxon, proved a failure, 
chiefly from this cause. Those engaged in the importation of English cattle 
begin already to make the same complaint, which they would not have done, 
had they taken the precaution to import their foreign stock in families. The 
Mulatto is an apparent, not a real exception to the rule. He is superior to 
the Negro, often superior to his white father ; but it is a superiority for a 
generation only, and carries with it the seeds of its own dissolution. The 
mule is superior to the donkey, but lasts only for a generation. The Oregon 
ox, a cross between the Spanish and American breeds, is superior to either 
of the pure breeds. But it is the concentration in one animal of what might 
be the material of divers generations. 

I once asked a Dutchess county farmer the cause of the great superiority 

of his crops of wheat, over those of his neighbors, and his reply was, that he 
12 



178 THE INCONGRUITY OF RACES. 



always brought his seed from a distance, changed it often, and took good care 
not to let it intermix with the wheat of that region. The same, or, rather, 
greater results have attended the transportation of American seeds and plants 
to California ; there a new soil and a new climate have produced upon all 
the staples of agriculture such an improvement, as to astonish men, who have 
made this branch of industry a study. It is the result of the migration of 
plants, where there are no plants of the same character to intermix, and so 
deteriorate the race, by crossing the breed. In trees the same law holds 
unchangeably. We produce fine fruit by inoculation and by grafting ; but 
experience has taught us never to inoculate upon a grafted stem, but always 
upon a natural branch. As the Conquistadors selected the best-looking 
Indian women for the mothers of the Meztizos, so the fruit-raiser selects the 
best natural stems to inoculate with his artificial varieties of fruit. In this 
way we get better fruit, by exhausting the root, and a whole race of plants 
are sometimes worn out by mixture, from too close a proximity of the difier- 
ent families of the same genus. In the laws which Moses gave to the children 
of Israel, we find a provision against the evils of intermixtures in the pre- 
cept: "Thy cattle shall not gender with diverse kind." "Thou shalt not 
sow thy field with divers seeds." In these precepts God has taken care to 
guard the wholesome generation of plants, as well as of animals. 

The successful intermingling of Protestant Saxon immigrants, with our 
own people, in the second and third generations, is not an exception to this 
law, as both are but branches of the same stock, and are successfully planted 
together. Nor is the mortality, which follows the Catholic immigration, an 
exception to the beneficial law of migration, for habits of intemperance 
account for their shortened lives ; and though their off'spring is abundant, yet 
it is all tainted with an inheritance of disease, and too many of the children 
suffer the ruinous consequences of having drawn "still slops" from a mo- 
ther's breast, in infancy. For physically, and in the chain of families, most 
truly are the sins of the fathers visited upon the children, to the third and 
fourth generation. Besides, most of them are Celts, a race doomed to extinc- 
tion. 

Our collection of material for an argument will be complete Avhen I have 
added, that the trees most prolific of artificial fruit die the earliest, and sufi'er 
most from running sores ; that the vines, cultivated artificially to produce 
choice wines, sufi'er most from the mildew, and that potatoes of the most arti- 
ficial varieties are the ones that have sufi'ered most from the rot. When the 
cholera first visited Mexico, its passage through the country was like the 



NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 



179 



ravages of the Angel of Death, among the Meztizos, and the fragments of 
decaying races. And this progress toward depopulation cannot be stayed by 
the infusion of a vigorous stock. The law of sexuality in plants, leads to the 
intermarriage of the vigorous with the decaying, by the intermixture of 
blossoms ; nor can human plants long vegetate together without intermar- 
riages, which engraft the vigorous constitutions with the virus of the decaying. 
— Wilson's Mexico, page 312. 



NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 



(1) {They hear the impress of vast 
wealth and resources. P. 146.] — 
"The whole exterior of this building 
[' House of the Governor' at Uxmal], 
presents a surface of seven hundred 
feet ; the * House of the Nuns' is two 
thousand feet, and the extent of sculp- 
tured surface exhibited by the other 
buildings, I am not able to give. Com- 
plete drawings of the whole would 
form one of the most magnificent 
series ever offered to the public, and 
such as it is yet our hope one day to 
be able to present. The reader will 
be able to form some idea of the time, 
skill, and labor required for making 
them ; and more than this, to con- 
ceive the immense time, skill, and 
labor required for carving such a sur- 
face of stone, and the Avealth, power, 
and cultivation of the people who 
could command such skill and labor 
for the mere decoration of their edi- 
fices. Probably all these ornaments 
have a symbolical meaning: each 
stone is part of an allegory or fable, 
hidden from us, inscrutable under the 
light of the feeble torch we may burn 
before it, but which, if ever revealed, 
will show that the history of the world 
yet remains to be written." — Central 
America, vol. II., page 434. Stkphens. 

(2) {These ruins are Egyptian in 



their obelisks or square columns. P. 
146.] — The obelisks, or square co- 
lumns of the Egyptians might, with 
propriety, be called the Egyptian in- 
scribed columns. They appear to 
have fulfilled a double office at Copan 
and Palenque. 

" In front and rear are sculptured 
idols, before which stands or has stood 
an altar. Their sides are covered with 
hieroglyphical inscriptions. At Co- 
pan the sculpture and inscriptions are 
cut into the polished stone face of the 
column.'^ — See Stephens's Central 
America, vol. I., ch. VII. 

At Palenque the columns are cover- 
ed, and the inscriptions and sculpture 
are upon stucco. At Uxmal the more 
modern — the round column makes its 
appearance, — Ibid., vol. II., page 428, 
— giving countenance to the idea that 
Copan was much the oldest city, and 
that Uxmal was the most modern of 
the three. 

(3) {In their painted statues, their 
hieroglyphical tablets and plinths, P. 
146.] — " It is the only statue that has 
ever been found at Palenque. We 
were at once struck with its expres- 
sion of serene repose, and its strong 
resemblance to Egyptian statues. . . . 
Round the neck is a necklace, and 
pressed against the breast by the right 



180 



NOTES TO CHAPTER Y. 



hand is an instrument, ap- 
parently with teeth [the 
mural crown?] The left 
hand rests on a hiero- 
glyphic [cartouche], from 
which descends some sym- 
bolical ornament. . . . 
The figure stands on what 
we have always consi- 
dered an hieroglyphic 
[plinth], analogous again 
to the custom in Egypt of 
recording the name and 
office of the hero or other 
person represented." — 
Ibid., vol. II., page 349. 

As the back of this 
statue is of rough stone, 
it was probably imbedded 
in a wall, but wrenched 
from its resting-place at 
the instigation of Spanish 
fanaticism, and tumbled, 
face downwards, among 
rubbish ; probably one 
of those liideous idols, 
in their estimation, over 
whose destruction the Ro- 
mish chroniclers so de- 
voutly exult ! If the in- 
strument held in the right 
hand of this statue is in 
fact the mural crown, then 
we have here for the pa- 
tron of the city of Pa- 
lenque, the Phoenician Hercules, Mal- 
cruth [prince of the city]. 

(4) [P. 146.]— "Her head is richly 
adorned, and her neck also graced 
with a necklace of two rows. The 
figure is supported by two columns. 
It is well executed, and in good pre- 
servation, bearing some resemblance 
to the ancient statues of the Egyptians. 
The same symmetry is observable in 




THE PALENQUE STATUE. 

Mexican [Ancient American] sculp- 
ture as in Mexican architecture, and 
to this figure its due and proper pro- 
portions must have been given by in- 
struments corresponding to our rule, 
level, and compass." — Dupaix in vol. 
VI. Lord Kingsborough, page 426. 

M. Von Humboldt, in his Essai 
Politique, vol. II., page 172, thus no- 
tices this statue : — " M. Dupe, a cap- 



NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 



181 




AMERICAN ISIS OR ASTARTE. 

tain in the service of the King of 
Spain possesses the bust, in basalt, of 
a Mexican [an antique], which I em- 
ployed M. Massard to engrave, and 
•which bears great resemblance to the 
calautica of the heads of Isis." 

(5) [In their painted sculpture. P. 
146.] — Speaking of the idol obelisk, 
which forms the frontispiece to his 
first volume, Mr. Stephens remarks, 
page 137, " Originally it was painted, 
the marks of red color being still dis- 
tinctly visible." Again, on p. 138, 
" The character of this image [the 
Palenque statue], as it stands at the 
foot of the pyramidal wall, with 
masses of fallen stone resting against 
the base, is grand, and it would be 
difficult to exceed the richness of 
the ornament, and sharpness of the 
sculpture. This, too, was painted, 



and the red is still distinctly visible." 
Again, page 139, " All these steps, 
and the pyramidal sides, were paint- 
ed." Page 311, vol. II., " The stucco 
is of admirable consistency, and hard 
as stone. It was painted, and in dif- 
ferent places about it we discovered 
the remains of red, blue, yellow, black, 
and white." 

" The oldest Egyptian sculptures 
on all large monuments were in low 
relief, and, as usual, at every period, 
painted." — Wilkinson, III., p. 303. 

" The introduction of color in archi- 
tecture was not peculiar to the Egyp- 
tians. It was common to the Etruri- 
ans, and even to the Greeks." — 
Wilkinson, III., p. 298. 

" In the temple of Theseus, at 
Athens, vestiges of colors are seen on 
the ornamental details." — Ibid., p. 299. 

(6) [Their paintings, p. 146.] — 
At page 311, vol. II., Yucatan; "Eor 
a long time we had been tantalized 
with fragments of painting ; giving 
us the strong impression that in 
this more perishable art these abo- 
riginal builders had made higher at- 
tainments than in that of sculpture, 
and we now had proof that our im- 
pression did them justice. The colors 
were green, yellow, red, blue, and a 
reddish brown ; the last being invaria- 
bly the color given to human flesh. 
• . . They exhibit a freedom of touch 
which could only be the result of dis- 
cipline and training under a master." 
Reddish-hrown, the color invariably 
given to human flesh, is Egyptian. 
Wherever human flesh is represented 
in Egyptian painting it is invariably 
by this reddish-brown." — See the 
plates of Lepsius, passim. 

"Red is adopted, as a standard 
color, for all that meant human flesh. 



182 



NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 



There are indeed some exceptions, 
viz., they represent a fair lady, byway 
of distinction, with yeUow. Where 
the red is supposed to be seen through 
a thin veil, the tints are nearly of the 
[our] natural color." — PharaoTi Neclio, 
Calmet, page 206, vol. IX. 

(7) [Hierogli/pJiicalinscriptions. P. 
146.] — The ancient Central Ameri- 
cans may have recorded secular affairs 
in phonetic letters, but all the inscrip- 
tions in and about their religious edi- 
fices — " which are the only ruins that 
remain," C. A., vol. I., page 133 — 
" are in hieroglyphics." We have al- 
ready noticed the hieroglyphic plinth, 
and the cartouche in the left hand of 
the Palenque statue. One of the 
altars at Copan (C. A., vol. I., page 
140), *' is six feet square and four 
feet high, and the top is divided into 
thirty-six tablets of hieroglyphics. 
On each of the four sides of this altar 
are represented four individuals. On 
the west side are the two principal 
personages, with their faces opposite 
to each other. The other fourteen are 
divided into two equal parties, and 
seem to be following their leaders. 
Each of the two principal figures is 
seated cross-legged, in the oriental 
fashion, on a hieroglyphic, of which 
the serpent forms a part. Between 
the two principal personages is a re- 
markable cartouche, containing two 
hieroglyphics, well preserved, which 
reminds us strongly of the Egyptian 
method of giving the names of the 
kings or heroes in whose honor monu- 
ments were erected." The two sides 
of the square columns at Copan were 
covered with hieroglyphics, cut into 
the stone face after the Egyptian 
fashion ; and not only in the buildings 
at Palenque and Uxmal, but in nearly 



every other one of the ruined cities 
of Yucatan, there are remains of hie- 
roglyphics after the Egyptian custom. 

(8) [Commoii emblems. P. 146.] — 
The serpent was an Egyptian as well 
as a Phoenician emblem. It was the 
representative of plenty — the Aga- 
tha Daimon. It is found on plate 
LXIX. of Calmet, vol. V. of Coins of 
Egypt, Nos. 20 and 21, with ears of 
corn [wheat] and a poppy. 

" In front of this hall [in the tomb 
of Pharaoh Necho], facing the en- 
trance, is one of the finest composi- 
tions that ever was made by the 
Egyptians, for nothing like it can be 
seen in any part of Egypt. . . . The 
whole group is surrounded by hiero- 
glyphics, and enclosed in a frame 
richly adorned with symbolical fig- 
ures. The winged globe is above, 
with the wings spread over all ; and 
a line of serpents crowns the whole." 
— Belzoni's description as copied by 
Calmet, IV., page 202. 

" At the head of the court-yard 
[house of the Nuns, so called at Ux- 
mal], two gigantic serpents, with their 
heads broken and fallen, were wind- 
ing from opposite directions along the 
wholeya^acZe." — Central America, vol. 
II., page 426. 

As the serpent appears as an archi- 
tectural ornament on nearly every 
one of the ruined edifices of Yucatan, 
it is not worth while to make further 
quotations. 

On the copper coin, or medal, found, 
as is alleged, at Palenque, the ser- 
pent constitutes the prominent em- 
blem, as will be hereafter noticed. 

We have not given the opinions of 
Mr. Stephens, or of the Spanish king's 
engineer. Captain Dupais. 

Their statements of fact should 



NOTES TO CHAPTER Y. 



183 



have greater weight with us, from 
the circumstance that both believed 
the Central American ruins were the 
product of American Indian civiliza- 
tion ! 

"In the first compartments [of the 
pavilion of Medinet Aboo], the king 
[Rameses IV.] appears seated under 
a canopy, the cornice of which is 
formed by a row of the royal ser- 
pents." — Kenrick's Ancient Egypt, 
vol. II., p. 273. 

(9) \_Their pyramids. P. 146.] — 
The great pyramid of Copan is 
greater in its dimensions than the 
great pyramid of Egypt, though trun- 
cated. On page 142, vol. 1, C A., we 
have : "On the left side of the passage 
is a high, pyramidal structure, with 
steps six feet high, and nine feet broad, 
like the sides of one of the pyramids 
of Saccara, and 122 feet high on the 
slope. The top is fallen, and has two 
immense Ceba trees growing out of 
it." On page 138, " At a short distance 
is a detached pyramid, tolerably per- 
fect, about 50 feet square and 30 feet 
high." On page 134, " Beyond are the 
remains of two small, pyramidal struc- 
tures. . . . Between the two pyra- 
mids there seems to have been a gate- 
way." On same page, " At the south- 
east corner is a massive pyramidal 
structure, 120 feet high on the slope. 
On the right are other remains of ter- 
races and pyramidal buildings ; and 
here also was probably a gateway, by 
a passage 20 feet wide, into a quad- 
rangular area, two sides of which are 
massive pyramids, 120 feet high on the 
elope." It would be difficult to find a 
style of building more perfectly Egyp- 
tian than this. 

" Were I writing descriptions of all 
that I have seen in Egypt, I would 



linger a long time in sketching this 
temple of Dakkeh, which is in excel- 
lent preservation, and is one of the 
finest specimens of the later temples 
of Egypt which now remain. 

" Approaching the temple in front, 
the traveller sees rising before him two 
lofty towers, built of hewn stone, 
without windows, rising to a height 
of sixty or eighty feet. At their bases 
they may be each about eighty feet 
broad, and the walls recede as they 
rise, so that the summits are much 
smaller than the bases. The two are 
connected by the gateway of the tem- 
ple, which is between them, and the 
outside of all is covered with sculpture 
in relief, of gods and kings innumer- 
able. Each of these towers contained 
within it four chambers, one above 
the other, and the stones are smooth, 
and polished as they were two thou- 
sand years ago. Passing through the 
gateway the visitor finds himself in the 
court of the temple, once surrounded 
with lofty walls, perhaps with rows 
of columns, all now fallen. Crossing 
the court he enters the temple itself. 
In most of the large temples of Egypt 
this portion is reached through a por- 
tico on which all the treasures of 
ancient art were lavished. Gorgeous 
columns supporting elegant capitals, 
which in turn supported architraves 
that were carved in every form of hiero- 
glyphic lore, stood in rows often four 
deep, and behind them a lofty door- 
way opened into the holy of holies. 

"Not so the temple at Dakkeh, 
which is but small. The entrance 
from the court is into the first of a 
succession of chambers, on all which 
art has expended itself. Every inch 
of the walls is covered with sculpture, 
beautifully executed, and standing as 



184 



NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 



fresh and sharp as on the day it was 
finished. The first room opens into a 
sort of corridor, which opens into the 
ancient adytum, or holy of holies. But 
a later monarch has erected an addi- 
tion to the temple, in the rear, and cut 
a doorway to it, so that this is the rear 
chamber, and is perhaps the most per- 
fectly preserved of any room in Egypt. 
I might except a, small sepulchral 
room, which opens on the eastern side 
of the old adytum. It was once a 
grave, doubtless, of some priest or 
prince, long since rifled of the trea- 
sure of dust it was holding for the 
resurrection. But the robbers left 
the walls of stone, and the lion sits 
calmly over the empty sarcophagus, 
and the gods stand where they stood 
a thousand years ago. Every part 
of this chamber is exquisitely sculp- 
tured, and the sculpture remains 
astonishingly perfect. I took impres- 
sions of many of them on paper, and 
the face of one of the heads of Isis 
was well worth preserving." 

(10) [Egyptian in dimension. P. 
146.] — It is a very difficult matter to 
get at the exact dimensions of an 
Egyptian or an American pyramid, 
from the mass of debris accumulated 
about their bases. The best measure- 
ments are but approximations. The 
world has been sadly imposed upon 
in this matter. Even Humboldt un- 
dertakes to give us the dimensions of 
that mass of loose earth, absurdly 
called the pyramid of Cholula ! 

" Lee Bruyn," we quote second 
hand, "gives the base side (of the 
great pyramid of Ghizeh) at 750 feet. 
Greaves states it to be 693 ; the differ- 
ence between these computations is 
57 feet, which, divided by the average, 
and added to the lesser sum, will show 



one side to be 721, which, multiplied 
by four, the sum total of the entire 
square base will be 2884 feet. That 
of Copau, 2866. Taking Greaves' num- 
bers, each side 693 by 4, equals 2772. 
Mr. Stephens' measurement of Copan 
is 2866 : ninety-four feet greater than 
the Egyptian." This pyramid of 
Copan, the reader will recollect, is 
not only truncated, but also cut off by 
a river wall, so as to have but one com- 
plete pyramidal side, while the two 
other pyramidal sides extend to and 
about the wall. This river wall Ste- 
phens estimates at from 130 to 150 
feet in height ! — C. A., vol. I., p. 
153. 

(11) [Casing of stone. P. 146.]— 
"The Palace," as it is called, at 
Palenque, stands on an artificial eleva- 
tion 40 feet high, 310 feet front and 
rear, and 260 feet on each side. This 
elevation was formerly cased with 
stones, which have been thrown down 
by the growth of trees. — See p. 310, 
Corres. vol. 2. 

On page 440 Stephens says, what we 
all know to be true, that the pyramids 
of Egypt, in their original form, pre- 
sented a face entirely smooth; and 
whore they now present the appear- 
ance of steps, it is caused by the fall- 
ing of the triangular casing-stone. 

This is the condition of things about 
the pyramids and truncated pyramids 
of Central America. 

(12) [Sepulchres in the rock. P. 
146.] Here we have to appeal to Du- 
paix, who minutely describes the exca- 
vated tombs in the solid granite at Mit- 
la, &c., LXXXVII, and XCI. p.451,vol. 
v.. Lord Kingsborough describes two 
of these. Stepliens never having visit- 
ed Mitla, denies the existence of Ame- 
rican excavated tombs. 



NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 



185 



(13) yCelebration of victory. P. 146.] 
— No Connecticut manufacturer of 
Egyptian mummies is more expert in 
the fabrication of antiques than the 
Mexican Spaniards. Knowledge of 
this fact should not lead us to reject 
that which is actually genuine. After 
a very careful personal examination 
of the stone called the " calendar (!) 
stone," and the other stone called "a 
sacrificial (!) stone," I am inclined to 
believe both of them relics of antiquity. 
How they came into the possession of 
the Spaniards is another question. 

"But one matter of peculiar interest 
among many others there [among the 
Phoenician ruins at Malta], is peculi- 
arly interesting, and that is an appa- 
rent calendar stone in the outer floor 
of the largest room, worn, perhaps, by 
the feet of those people during many 
ages, and, perhaps, by the storms and 
rains of centuries. This stone appears 
to me evidently intended to mark the 
variations of the sun's rising between 
the tropics, that the idolatry of sun- 
worship might be more systematically 
accomplished." — Kev. Mr. OsBORisr. 

The "calendar" stone, so called, has 
the mask of Saturn upon it, and doubt- 
less in some way was connected with 
his worship. The Spaniards have 
mutilated the "sacrificial" stone, by 
hollowing out a pretended blood bowl 
and gutter on the top, to constitute it 
a testimonial in favor of their allega- 
tion against the poor Aztecs ; that 
they indulged in human sacrifice. 

The carving of these stones appears 
to be of great antiquity, and to have 
been executed with tools not now in use. 
This kind of sculpture could be success- 
fully imitated, but the Spaniards were 
too ignorant of antiquity to do it. 

Dupaix, a very devout Komanist, 
describes it as a stone of victory. This 



it doubtless is. It is a circular shaft, 
of sufiacient height and diameter for 
an altar. On its upright surface is 
repeated eighteen times a distin- 
guished personage holding a captive 
by the hair. This, Dupaix supposes 
to indicate the number of conquered 
provinces — eighteen. 

"In one [of the four temples of 
Mewe on the Upper Nile] a king 
appears, holding a number of captives 
by the hair, who stretch their hands 
towards him in an attitude of suppli- 
cation, while he threatens to strike 
them with the hatchet." — Kenrick, 
vol. I., page 8, 

The "sacrificial" stone is most likely 
intended to represent the same idea. 

(14) [Approximations of the arch. 
P. 146.] — Throughout every part of 
Central America, Chiapa, and Yuca- 
tan, the same method is to be traced, 
with slight modifications. The stones 
forming the side walls are made to 
overlap each other, until the walls al- 
most meet above, and then the narrow 
ceilings are covered with a layer of flat 
stones." — Stephens's Yucatan, vol. I., 
page 429. 

Wilkinson, in his " Manners and Cus- 
toms of the Ancient Egyptians," vol. 1. 
p. 132, also vol. I., pages 116 and 117, 
insists that the arch was in use among 
the Egyptians. But Stephens is more 
explicit in defining the kind of arch. He 
says, ( Yucatan, I., page 433) " No. 4 is 
the most common form of arch used by 
the ancient American builders. A 
striking resemblance will doubtless be 
observed, indeed they may almost be 
considered identical, and it may be 
added, that at Medeenet Haboo, which 
forms a part of the Ancient Egyptian 
Thebes, a similar contrivance was ob- 
served by Mr. Catherwood. From this 
it will appear that the true principles 



186 



NOTES TO CHAPTER Y. 



of the arch were not understood by 
the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, or 
Etrusca,ns, or by the American build- 
ers. It might be supposed that a coin- 
cidence of this strongly marked char- 
acter, would go far to establish an 
ancient connection between all these 
people, but, without denying that such 
may have been the case, the probabili- 
ties are greatly the other way." That 
is, Mr. Stephens having a pet theory 
to sustain, — that the Indians were the 
builders of those ancient cities of Yuca- 
tan, would like to deny the legitimate 
deduction from his own testimony. 

(15) [^Platforms iceTe constructed. P. 
147.] — Every one of the ruined struc- 
tures yet discovered in Yucatan or 
Central America, is built on a trunca- 
ted pyramidal structure. Were these 
the houses of the " high places" erect- 
ed in the cities of Samaria, after they 
had adopted the idolatry of the Phoe- 
nicians ? See 2 Kings xxiii. 15 and 
19. 

(16) [Vaults of their pyramids. P. 
147.] — Col. Galinda first broke into 
this sepulchral vault, and found the 
niches and the ground [the floor] full 
of red earthenware dishes and pots, 
more than fifty of which, he says, were 
full of human bones, packed in lime ; 
also several sharp-edged, and pointed 
knives of cliaya, a small death's- 
head, carved in green stone, its eyes 
nearly closed, the lower features dis- 
torted, and the back symmetrically 
perforated by holes, — the whole of ex- 
quisite workmanship (viz., an en- 
graved gem.) — C. A., vol. I., p. 144. 

Such are the reputed contents of one 
of the vaulted chambers of the great 
pyramid of Copan. 

(17) [Doubtfid existence of sacred 
animals or insects. P. 147.] — Among 



the articles alleged to have been dug 
up in the Grand Plaza of Mexico are 
a number of colossal baboons. The 
reader must understand the author 
does not vouch for their genuineness : 
he only suggests the probabilities of 
the case. 

" Among the fragments on this side 
were the remains of a colossal ape or 
baboon, strongly resembling in outline 
and appearance the four monstrous 
animals, which once stood in front, 
attached to the base of the obelisk of 
Luxon, now in Paris, and which, under 
the name Cynocephali, were wor- 
shipped at Thebes." — C. A., vol. I., 
page 134. 

{18) [Of Hindoo origin. P. 147.] 
— " The faces of both figures were 
painted blue." — Belzoni's Descrip- 
tion of the Paintings in the Tomb of 
Pharaoh Necho. 

" It is probable that the reader has 
been somewhat startled at the blue 
visage of the deity [above referred to] . 
It afi'ords one more proof of conformity 
with the deities of India. Such being 
the complexion of Chrishnu and Siva, 
also the poets sing his neck's celestial 
blue." Dr. E. D. Clark's Travels, 
vol. III., p. 58, refers to the con- 
duct of the Sepoy regiments when 
brought from India to Egypt in 1801, 
recognising the divinities of their own 
country among the sculptured figures 
of an Egyptian temple. They regarded 
the temple of Dendara as sacred to 
their own god Vishnu. They also fell 
down before the gods in the temple of 
Tentyra, and claimed them as of their 
own belief. — Mrs. Graham's Residence 
in India, page 53. 

Dagon was clearly the chief deity 
of the Philistines. She was identi- 
cal with Astarte of the Phoenicians, 



NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 



187 



and appears to have been so consi- 
dered bj their neighbors — the He- 
brews. Thus, in 1 Chron. x. 10, 
" And fastened his [Saul's] head in 
the temple of Dagon ; 1 Sam. xxxi. 
10, "And they put his armor in the 
house of Ashteroth" [Astarte]. 

The method of representing this 
deity by the Phoenicians and Philis- 
tines shows her to have been a sea 
goddess ; by the Phoenicians she was 
represented as standing on a galley ; 
by the Philistines as coming out of 
the mouth of a fish ; full robed and 
crowned with a proper emblem in 
each of her four hands. — See Plate 
LV.,vol. v., Calmet. This plate (LV.) 
is copied from Maurice's " History of 
India" (Plate VII., p. 507) ; it repre- 
sents a young person crowned, having 
four arms, each holding its proper 
symbol ; coming out of a great fish. 
" The centre piece (Plate LVI., toI. V., 
Calmet) proves sufficiently that the 
Greeks borrowed their compound 
forms from the East. To suppose 
that Egypt communicated its mytho- 
logy to India is to reverse the order 
of events. The Hindoo [Hindu] idea 
certainly was the parent of all the 
Titans and Nereids of Grecian anti- 
quity. This gem shows with what 
readiness they adopted it, and the 
heads below sufficiently show with 
what tenacity they retained it. * * * 
Consulting the oldest fragments of 
Chaldean mythology * * * the mon- 
sters represented on them are but 
counterparts of the Indian Vishnu. 
Besides the two figures of the hu- 
manized fish, viz., Dagon, it con- 
tains a bird, probably a dove, and 
the winged globe." Dagon signifies 
wheat. Another title would properly 
be Ceres. But Ceres was sister to 



Saturn ! [Molech.] " Lastly, Ceres is 
sometimes described with the attri- 
butes of Isis, the goddess of fertility, 
among the Egyptians. Berosus [a 
priest in the temple of Belas at Baby- 
lon 400 years before Christ] says that 
Oaunos had the body and head of a 
fish, and above the head of the fish a 
human head, &c. An Egyptian medal 
represents half the body of a woman, 
the tail of a fish, &c. 

" Astarte was probably the same as 
the Isis of Egypt, who was repre- 
sented with the head of an ox, or 
with horns on her head. But the 
manner of representing Astarte on 
medals is not always the same. 

" Cicero says (lib. iii., de Nat. Deo- 
runi) that Astarte was the Syrian 
Venus," &c. 

Plate XL., Calmet, coin No. 1, 
Alexander Severns, on the reverse 
Astarte, holding a Latin cross, the em- 
peror placing a wreath on her head I 

We have had to shorten these quo- 
tations as much as we could without 
marring the efi"ect of authorities. The 
sum of them all seems to be, that the 
Hindoos were the first to fall into 
idolatry, and with the progress of 
commerce westward spread the ncAv 
religion. The Egyptians, having had 
the longest intercourse with India, 
adopted both the religion and cus- 
toms of India. The other ancient 
commercial nations, less intimately 
connected with the Hindoos, adopted 
their religion, but not their customs 
or forms of worship. As this idolatry 
travels to a distance from the starting 
point, we find new titles and new 
attributes assigned to the most pro- 
minent divinities. The variations are 
not greater, however, than among 
Christians. 



188 



NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 



The Being whom we worship we 
do not call by his name Jehovah, but 
by some one of his attributes. So it 
appears to have been with the wor- 
shippers of false gods. 

(19) [Gmndchildreno/Mizraim. P. 
148.] — " Have not 1 brought up Israel 
out of the land of Egypt, and the 
Philistians from Caphtor, and the 
Syrians from Kir :" Amos ix. 7. Cal- 
met, following a distinguished Orien- 
talist, Major Wilford, ^5. Research. 
3, p. 72, supposes that Caphtor was 
Cashmire, and that the shepherds 
that invaded Egypt were Oriental 
shepherds, viz., Palli ; and that there 
were two irruptions of Palli, and that 
the Philistians were an off-shoot from 
the first eruption of Palli. And that 
Crete was also overrun by these Palli. 
(Calmet I., p. 35.) This may be very 
poetical. A more probable location 
of Caphtor would be one of the islands 
of the desert, beyond Egypt, or one 
in the Delta — Caphtor meaning an 
island. Issuing from their own 
country, wherever it may have been, 
they overran Egypt, Philistia, and the 
islands of Crete, and perhaps Cyprus, 
even before the time of Abraham, 
484 years after the flood. 

(20) [Of Mgh-caste. P. 148.]— 
" The Egyptians are divided into 
seven classes [castes]. These are 
the priests, the military, herdsmen, 
swineherds, tradesmen, interpreters. 
They take their names from their 
profession." — Herodotus 2, clxiv. 

(21) [Knew not Joseph. P. 149.] 
— The idea which the Alexandria 
translators (the LXX.) attached to 
this expression of the sacred text has 
caused the confusion in ancient chro- 
nology, which perplexes the reader of 
Scripture as much as the Archisolo- 



gist. The text says (Ex. xi. 12-40) that 
the children of Israel dwelt in Egypt 
430 years. They (the LXX.) saw fit 
to count this 430 from the visit of 
Abraham, the grandfather of Israel ! 
for the above cause, and for the 
additional reason that only three 
names between Levi and Moses are 
mentioned, the unimportant ones, as 
is not uncommon in Scripture, pro- 
bably being omitted — that is, they 
shortened this 430 to 280 years. — See 
Kenrick's Ancient Egypt, vol. II., page 
265, wherein the increase of the people 
from 70 persons to 603,550 fighting 
men, it is shown, would require at 
least the longer period. Like the 
Philistians the Israelites fell into 
idolatry during their long sojourn in 
Egypt; adopting the gods of the 
Egyptians, without adopting their 
customs — for Moses charges them to 
put away the strange gods that were 
among them, &c. 

(22) [The shepherd Jdngs. P. 149.] 
— It has been customary to attri- 
bute the Egyptian abhorrence to shep- 
herds, to their hatred of the Hyksos, 
who had so long ruled over them. A 
parity of reasoning would prove the 
Hyksos to have been a commercial 
people ; for the Egyptians did not less 
abhor navigators. — Kenrick, vol. II., 
pages 25, 36, <fec. 

(23) [Public ivorks. P. 149.]— 
The last correction of Egyptian chro- 
nology makes an interval of five dy- 
nasties between the early religious 
structures and those magnificent pro- 
ductions of the beginning of the 
eighteenth dynasty. 

This long period — say six hundred 
and fifty years — is claimed to have 
been an era of barbarism, the reign 
of the shepherd kings. In confirma- 



NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 



189 



tlon of this, an author refers to the 
painting in the Theban tomb of the 
reign of Thothmes III., where the 
persons engaged making brick are 
identified as the Israelites, working 
under task masters. — Ibid., p. 196, 

If we adopt this solution, it at once 
establishes a conclusion the very op- 
posite of that author's. 

These edifices, which have aston- 
ished the world, are of no utility 
whatever ; and it may well be claimed 
that it is the dedication of the accu- 
mulations of 650 years of successful 
and prudent administration to the 
uses of a blind superstition. Would 
not the wealth of the English have 
been appropriated to a like supersti- 
tious use if the Sepoys had been suc- 
cessful in the late war in India ? 

The burthen of Israel in Egypt was 
not slavery in our sense, but a griev- 
ous tax in the form of personal ser- 
vice on the king's works — called 
among us statute labor. It seems to 
have continued for several successive 
reigns ; with the departure of Israel 
from Egypt, these works seem almost 
entirely to have ceased ; Egypt was 
exhausted. The subsequent achieve- 
ments of her kings do not amount to 
much, though ostentatiously paraded 
on their tombs. 

(24) [Strongly fortified. P. 150.]— 
It must be recollected that these 
spies that were so astonished at the 
magnitude of the cities of Canaan 
had just come from the great city of 
Rameses in Egypt. We must also 
recollect that, of the thirty-one cities 
captured by Joshua, Ai is called a 
little one, though he slew in its cap- 
ture 12,000 men and women. 

(25) [Divine interposition. P. 150.] 
— 'The immense army which Joshua 



led had been undergoing a con- 
tinued discipline, during their long 
abode in the wilderness — necessary to 
transform a nation of slaves into sol- 
diers — yet their conquest of Canaan 
was expressly declared to be miracu- 
lous. Phoenicia too, it must be recol- 
lected, was settled before Egypt. Now 
Hebron was built seven years before 
Zoan [Sais] (Wilkinson, vol. I., p. 
175) in Egypt. — Numbers xiii. 22. 

At this time Phoenicia had a larger 
population and greater resources than 
Egypt itself. There were still the 
remnants of the giant race, as the 
shortening of human life, and the ' 
dwarfing of human stature, had not 
been entirely consummated. 

(26) Commerce, to and from India. 
P. 150.] — From Rhinocolorum on the 
Mediterranean to the Red Sea. 

(27) [Gadir, now Cadiz. P. 151.] 
— Isaiah opens his denunciation 
against Tyre (chap, xxiii.) by calling 
on the ships of Tarshish to howl, as 
though Tarshish and her commerce 
would be the chief sufferers by the 
destruction of Tyre. He also (verse 
10) calls Tyre the daughter of Tar- 
shish, a figurative expression, as Tyre 
was really the daughter of Sidon, as 
stated in verse 12. The most natural 
inference, both from this expression 
and from the whole scope of the 
chapter, is that at that early period 
Tarshish was a more important city 
than Tyre, and that the two held the 
most intimate relations. The country 
of Chittim may be the same as Kittim 
mentioned in connection with Tar- 
shish in Genesis x. 4. If so, then we 
have a country associated with the 
Isle of Tarshish, supplying the mar- 
kets of Tyre. The ships of Tarshish 
too have clearly the pre-eminence. 



190 



NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 



They are to suffer by the destruction 
of Tyre, and of its "entering in," 
viz., its harbor, and the destruction 
of its merchant princes. 

" Tarshish was thy merchant [thy 
customer] by reason of the multitude 
of all kinds of riches ; with silver, 
iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy 
fairs :" Ezekiel xxvii. 12. 

Here again we have a plain intima- 
tion of the commercial importance of 
this European city of Tarshish, Other 
European nations brought slaves to 
Tyre, Tubal, Javan, and Mashech, but 
Tarshish brought the products of 
civilized industry. 

(28) [The Turdeianians. P. 151.] 
— " The country to the eastward of 
the Anas, and the Celtic districts 
bordering on the river, was termed 
Bgetica from the river Baetis, the 
Gaudalquivir, which flows through 
it. It had the name of Turdetania 
from its inhabitants. * * * Turde- 
tania comprehends most of the south 
of Spain, reaching fi"om the river 
Anas to the mountainous country of 
the Oretani or La Mancha. It was, 
according to Strabo, said to contain 
200 cities, the principal of which were 
Gadir or Cadiz, Cordova, and His- 
palis. This country was very pro- 
ductive. The exports of corn, wine, 
and oil were so considerable, that the 
ships in which they were brought to 
Ostia, the port of Rome, were nearly 
as numerous as those from Africa. 
Among the exports were great quan- 
tities of gold and silver. * * * The 
Turdetani were the most civilized 
people of Spain ; and, according to 
the same geographer, the river Bsetis 
was in earlier times named Tartessus, 
Tartessus is mentioned by Herodotus 
[Lib. 1 (Clio), sec. CLXIIL] as a 



place of great power and opulence 
at the period of the earliest voyages 
of the Phocaeans into the Western 
Mediterranean. 

" He also informs us that the Turde- 
tani (people of Tartessus) were the 
most learned people in Spain. They 
were acquainted with the use of 
letters, and preserved among them 
records of antiquity and poems, and 
laws composed in metre, handed down 
from a period of 6000 years. — Strabo, 
vol. III., page 193. — Prichard's Phy- 
sical History of Mankind, London, 
1841, vol. III., page 37. 

" Tartessus stood between the two 
branches of the river Beetica, which 
it formed in its passage through the 
Lake Lybistinus, and most commodi- 
ous it was in consequence for the 
purposes of navigation and trade. 
This people (the Turdetani) gave 
their name not only to the island and 
river on which their city was, but to 
the whole country which was called 
Tartessus. Burkhardt informs us that 
Cadiz and Cavia were anciently called 
Tartessus, and thinks that the former 
was built by the Tarshish of Scrip- 
ture, immediately after the dispersion, 
and the two latter long after by the 
Phoenicians." — Note to Lib. 1 [Clio), 
sec. CLXIII., Herodotus: Beloe's 
edition. 

This idea places Andalusia in a 
new and important relation to anti- 
quity, a flourishing and civilized peo- 
ple long before the historic period, or 
according to the poetical expression, 
before antiquity had a beginning. It 
is said that their allies, the Phoeni- 
cians, claim to have invented letters. 
May they not have received them, as 
they did the commodities of their com- 
merce, from Tartessus ? from whence 



NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 



191 



too tliey derived the adoration of Her- 
cules. We have already seen, that 
in the times of its greatest prosperity 
Tyre was subordinate to this once 
famous focus of ocean commerce. 
Here vras deposited in the temple of 
Hercules, as we shall presently see, 
that mysterious stone which the Phoe- 
nician mariners brought on board, 
with religious ceremony, to guide 
their navigation after they had passed 
out into the ocean. 

(29) [Tin from England. P. 151.] 
— Strabo however holds that tin was 
found by the Turdetanians in the 
mountain country inhabited by bar- 
barians above Lusitania. — Strabo, 
Lib. III., p. 192. 

(30) \The process of hardening brass 
had been lost. P. 151.] — The reader 
will excuse the author from claiming 
any practical knowledge of the mys- 
teries of literature. In every instance 
where translators of Homer use the 
word steel or cold steel, the original 
word is brass — if the author's recollec- 
tions of his early lessons are correct. 

(31) [The times of the Pharaohs. 
P. 151.]— Caesar thus describes the 
ocean ships of the Veneti — a nation of 
the west of Gaul. It will be seen that 
they were the model of the Dutch 
ships of the present day. " The keels 
were somewhat flatter than those of 
our ships, whereby they could more 
easily encounter the shallows and the 
ebbing of the tide. The prows were 
raised very high, and, in like manner, 
the sterns were adapted to the force 
of the waves and storms. The ships 
were built wholly of oak, and designed 
to endure any force and violence what- 
ever. The benches, which were made 
of planks a foot in breadth, were 
fastened by iron spikes of the thick- 



ness of a man's thumb. The anchors 
were secured fast by iron chains in- 
stead of cables, and for sails they 
used skins and thin dressed leather. 

* * * Although turrets were built 
[on the Roman decks], yet the height 
of the sterns of the barbarous [foreign] 
ships exceeded these, so that weapons 
could not be cast up from our lower po- 
sition with sufficient effect." — CiESAR, 
III., chap. xiii. 

This is about the last ever heard of 
the ocean going ships of antiquity. 
The Veneti were sold into slavery at 
Eome, and Roman galleys took the 
place of the barbarian ships. 

The reader cannot fail to have 
noticed how exactly these ships 
correspond in model to the Chinese 
junks — superior to them indeed in 
size and strength, but not in model. 

(32) [ Without the aid of oars. P. 
151.] — " Their name is written Shaire- 
taan, with an addition which shows 
them to have been a maritime people. 

* * * * It is the only repre- 
sentation of a naval battle remain- 
ing among the Egyptian monuments. 
The Egyptian vessels have both oars 
and sails ; those of the enemy sails 
only, and they differ in their build, 
&c." — Kenrick, vol. II., page 278. 

(33) [Basques or people of Biscay. 
P. 151.] — " These facts lead us to the 
inference, that Celtic tribes once occu- 
pied a great part, namely, the western 
half of the peninsula, before the 
Euskaldunes [Turdetani] gained pos- 
session of it, and while the latter 
were the inhabitants of Bsetica, Tur- 
detania, and the other eastern and 
southern provinces, where the Celts 
appear never to have had the least 
footing." — Prichard, vol. III., page 
47. 



192 



NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 



"That the Euskarian is identical 
with the language of the ancient 
Iberi, or its genuine descendant [the 
Basque], and that the Euskaldunes 
are the offspring of the aborigines 
of the Spanish peninsula ; are points 
which M. [W.] de Humboldt has un- 
dertaken in his work to establish." — 
Ibid., page 26, 

" In this we recognise," says Hum- 
boldt, " a confirmation of an opinion 
deduced from other grounds, viz., 
that the Iberians belong to the very 
earliest stock of European nations. 
Their history manifestly reaches back 
beyond the periods of languages which 
we regard as ancient, namely, those 
of the Greeks and Romans, and if we 
seek a point of comparison, can only 
be placed on a line with the pre- 
hellenic idiom of the old Pelasgi." — 
UntersucJmnge?!, page 177. 

" It had been supposed by English 
writers, since the time of Edward 
Shuyd, that the Biscayan dialects are 
a remote branch of the Celtic lan- 
guage. This opinion, which had no 
foundation but conjecture, has long 
ago been refuted and entirely aban- 
doned. It is well known that in its 
whole formation the Euskarian differs 
entirely from the Celtic." — Prichard, 
vol. III., p. 22. 

" The Euskaldunes, or ancient Ibe- 
rians, are the aborigines of Western 
Europe ; their language is the Euska- 
rian. They are supposed to have 
inhabited Spain, Gaul, and Italy." — 
Ibid., page 17. 

"It is well known that several 
parts of Spain were inhabited by 
Celtic tribes, and that through a 
great portion of the interior of the 
peninsula, Celtic people had become 
blended with Iberians, forming the 



Celt-Iberian nations, who were the 
most considerable and powerful clans 
in Spain." — Ibid., page 29. 

The foregoing extracts will fully 
explain the apparent anomaly, viz., 
that of the ancient emigration from 
Spain to Ireland and Britain being 
Celts, and not Turdetani ; that is, 
the emigration naturally took place 
from the northern part of Spain, then 
occupied by that mixed population 
called Celt-Iberians. In this migra- 
tion the Celtic element predominated, 
and rooted out the Basque element, or 
at least language, in those ancient 
colonies. 

If the Euskalde element has since 
rooted out the Celtic element in the 
Basque provinces, it may be ac- 
counted for by this emigration, and 
by the Euskaldunes being driven out 
of the south of Spain by the ingress 
of foreign races, as will be seen when 
we come to the next chapter. 

(34) [Enjoyment of the fuei'os of the 
provinces. P. 152.] — "To this day 
the Irish and Scotch are entitled, on 
setting foot in Biscay, to every privi- 
lege and immunity of the natives — 
they have the rank of nobles, can be 
elected to any magistracy, and have 
the right of holding land. From these 
privileges Spaniards are excluded." — 
Pillars of Hercides, vol. II., page 201. 

It will be recollected that Urquhart, 
the author of " Pillars of Hercules," 
was himself a Celt, of the Scottish 
branch of that race. As he speaks of 
his own personal knowledge, we must 
credit him, the commissioner in those 
parts of Her Majesty's government, 
though his conclusions are at variance 
with Prichard. 

(35) [The Indian system of caste. P. 
152.] — The king, the priests, and war- 



NOTES TO CHAPTER Y. 



193 



riors were the proprietors of the soil. 
Those who had charge of cattle con- 
stituted a distinct class. The swine- 
herds formed another — a Pariah caste 
— to AA'hom alone of all the Egyptians 
access to the temples was denied, and 
who could only intermarry among 
themselves. — Kenrick, vol. II., page 
36. 

(36) [Calpe and Abyla. P. 152.] 
— " To call Calpe [Gibraltar] and 
Abyla the Pillars of Hercules, was 
a license, and might be a poetic 
one; but to assume these mountains 
to be so, geographically, was to 
withdraw the license by destroying 
the poetry. This solecism modern 
philosophy has adopted." — Pillars of 
Hercules, vol. II. (Harper's Ed.), page 
22. Our old chronicler explains fully 
this apparent solecism — that there 
were both pillars in the temple and 
also upon those lofty hills. 

" Here stood the Altars of Hercules. 
It was to visit this spot that I had 
started from Cadiz. * * * An antique 
bridge joins the isla (island) to the 
mainland ; it stands about half way 
between the bay and the sea. It was 
rather a causeway, with arches, than 
a bridge, and was said to be Phoeni- 
cian." — Ibid. vol. I., page 92. 

"In this temple two Hercules are 
worshipped, without having statues 
erected to them. The Egyptian Her- 
cules has two bronze altars, without 
inscriptions ; the Theban (Greek) but 
one. Here we see engraved the Hydra 
and Diomede's mares, and the twelve 
labors of Hercules, together with the 
golden olive of Pygmalion, wrought 
with exquisite skill, and placed here 
no less on account of the beauty of its 
branches, than on that of its fruit, of 
emeralds, which appeared as if real. 
Besides, the golden belt of Telamonian 
13 



Teucer was shown to us. * * * The 
pillars in the temple were composed 
of gold and silver ; and so nicely 
blended were the metals, as to form 
but one color.- They were more than 
a cubit high, of a quadrangular form, 
like anvils, whose capitals were in- 
scribed with characters neither Egyp- 
tian nor Indian, nor such as could be 
deciphered. These pillars are the 
chains which bind together the earth 
and sea. The inscriptions on them 
were executed by Hercules, in the 
house of Parc83, to prevent discord 
arising among the elements, and that 
friendship being interrupted which 
they have for each other." — Philos- 
TRATUS in Apollonius, vol. 5. 

" Among the various articles which 
enrich and adorn it, [the temple of 
Hercules, at Tyre] I saw two pil- 
lars ; the one was of the purest gold, 
the other of emerald ; [Phoenician 
stained glass?] which, in the night, 
difiTused an extraordinary splendor. 
This temple, as they [the priests] 
affirmed, had been standing ever since 
the first building of the city, a period 
of 2300 years." — Herodotus, Book II., 
XLIV. 

Egypt has certainly communicated 
to Greece the names of almost all the 
gods : that they are of barbaric [for- 
eign] origin I am convinced by my dif- 
ferent researches. — Ibid. L. 

(37) [Emblem of fndf fulness. P. 
152.] — It is hardly worth while to 
make more quotations of authority in 
relation to this common emblem of 
antiquity ; we have not the space. 

Plate CXXXV. vol. 5 of Calmet. Coin 
No. 8, is a serpent around a cornuco- 
pia. No. 10 is a very customary repre- 
sentation to Health and Esculapius. 
It results from the whole that the ser- 
pent denotes Agatho-daimon, or good 



194 



NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 



genius of the worshipper. — Calmet, 
vol. III., page 760. 

(38) [Saint Patrich caused to he ef- 
faced. P. 152.] — The author is com- 
pelled to refer to an anonymous autho- 
rity for this statement; as it is an 
unimportant point, he has not thought 
it worthy the labour of tracing it to a 
responsible source. 

(39) [Personifies the moon. P. 153.] 
— "The Egyptians do not pay reli- 
gious ceremonies to heroes," says Hero- 
dotus : Ibid. Book II, chap. L. But 
this statement is not strictly true. They 
did not worship, — they only adored, 
heroes. See the representations on 
the tombs of Medenet-Aboo. 

(40) [Hercules-Apollo. P. 153.]— 
The attempt to establish Samson as 
the Phoenician Hercules, (see trans- 
lator Beloe, note to Book VIII., chap. 
LXVII., Herodotus) is not without 
plausibility. But there is another 
satisfactory way of accounting for it : 
viz., that they engrafted into the char- 
acter of Hercules the story of Sam- 
son, and in his worship followed the 
Hebrew, which was substantially the 
Egyptian ritual, without the idolatry, 
or, the adoration of Hercules may have 
been older than idolatry. 

(41) [A canonized king. P. 153.] 
— " The Egyptians are commonly said 
to have nothing answering to the 
Greek hero-worship. [See previous 
note.] But they paid religious honors 
to eminent persons after their decease, 
not unlike Greek hero worship. Thoth- 
mos III., on the tablet of Karnak, pre- 
sents offerings to his predecessor : so 
does Rameses." — Kenrick, vol. I., 
page 361. 

In the present confused notions of 
Egpytian chronology there is a diffi- 
culty in identifying any one of the 
Egyptian kings, who appears urion 



the lists, as a patron of commerce, 
and one who had distinguished him- 
self by exploits beyond sea. As Her- 
cules most probably was one of the 
Hyksos, or shepherds, one that ap- 
proaches nearest to the required cha- 
racter is Rameses IV., who celebrates 
a victory at sea on his tomb, and 
Hercules would then be Rameses V. 

" On the sarcophagus of Rameses 
V. the 24 hours are represented, show- 
ing the antiquity of this division. Each 
has a star placed above it, and a figure 
12, male, representing the day, have 
their faces turned towards the god 
Horus (from whence comes the word 
hour,) the representative of the sun, 
the 12 female towards a crocodile, the 
symbol of darkness. In a great astro- 
nomical picture, from the tombs of 
Bab-el-Melook, a variety of circum- 
stances connected with the rising and 
setting of the stars are evidently indi- 
cated." — Kenrick, vol. II., page 383. 

" The Tyrians of Phoenicia, who had 
now learned the way to Spain, came 
with their king, Eurythree, and good 
store of ships, who gave them to under- 
stand that he had been commanded 
by the Oracle to come and build a 
temple to Hercules Libique, in the 
island of Tartissa, that is Calis ; [Ca- 
diz ?] they were not only received, but 
Eurythree was chosen king of that 
part of Spain : who built a stately 
temple in the island to Hercules ; 
changing the name thereof, and caus- 
ing it to be called Eurythree, or else 
renewed that name which it might 
have had from the sister of Orus [Ra- 
meses] above-mentioned, or of the 
Erythenes of the east, [Gauls or Celts, 
perhaps,] who followed Hercules Orus, 
which had dwelt there." The same 
author says, that a king of Egypt, 
whom he calls Orus Denis, came with 



KOTES TO CHAPTER V. 



195 



an army of Egyptians, Africans, Syri- 
ans, and Phoenicians, and in a battle 
by land and sea, routed the party of 
Gerion, and that this Orus was the 
father to Hercules the Great. In the 
land and sea fight, represented on his 
tomb, the same people are fighting on 
both sides. — Translation by Ed. Grim- 
sJiaw from the French of Louis de 
Matenne Turgxjt, London, 1612, 
page 8. See next chapter. 

The purport of all these authorities, 
approaching the subject from diff'erent 
positions, is to fix the connection of 
Hercules with the division of time, and 
the leadership of the Gauls, [Celts] — ■ 
mercenaries in Egypt, of the East, 
with an army of Egj'ptians. 

The excellent divisions of time, 
which we have borrowed of the an- 
cient Egyptians, may have had this 
origin, 

(42) [Queen of Heaven. P. 153.] 
— "One of the finest specimens of 
Assyrian sculpture brought to Eng- 
land, represents an early Nimrod 
king, in high relief, carved on a solid 
block of limestone. Round his neck 
arc hung the four sacred signs: the 
crescent, the star or sun, the trident, 
and THE CROSS." — Layard's Nineveh 
and Babylon, page 306. 

(43) [Thirteenth century {1242), P. 
154.] — The date of this publication is 
important. It will be seen that it is 
just sixty years earlier than the pre- 
tended discovery of this important 
instrument by Flavio Gioja. Dr. 
Robertson, who is a good authority 
on the subject of all old wives, fables, 
that have crawled into our school 
books as histories, thus enlightens 
us : — 

" Flavio Gioja, a citizen of Amalfi, 
a town of considerable trade in the 
kingdom of Naples, was the author 



of this great discovery about the year 
1302." — History of America, Book I., 
p. 32. Whereupon this learned school- 
master waxes indignant at the neglect 
with which this great discoverer was 
treated by the world ! A discoverer 
who did not discover anything. That 
is to say, the people of Amalfi being 
engaged in commerce with the Sara- 
cens, borrowed from them the use of 
the compass, as we have borrowed 
from them our architecture and civili- 
zation, and, in our profound ignorance, 
credited them to an impositor, as a 
new discovery, lest good Catholics 
should be shocked by using an Arab 
invention. 

(44) [They take a cup of water. P. 
154.] — " I have shown in the method 
first practised by the Arabs the instru- 
ment to which the otherwise meaning- 
less myths of Greece refer. Ihave iden- 
tified the stone of Hercules, the cup 
of Apollo, the arrow of Abaris. That 
the stone of Hercules was the mag- 
net, no one contests. The polarity of 
the needle, and the art of manufac- 
turing gems, did not die with them 
[the Phoenicians]." — Pillars, vol. I., 
page 162. " The outer Ocean, that in 
which the compass was necessary, is 
called El Bahar El Bossul, the vio- 
lent (Boussale is the present name 
for the compass), as distinguished for 
El Bahar El Muit." — El Edressi's 
Geography of Spain. 

" Amalfi, the earliest of European 
commercial states, arose under the 
Greeks and Saracens. To the latter it 
owed the lead it took in instruction 
and navigation. Centuries and gene- 
rations before Flavio Gioja the needle 
was known at Amalfi." * * The 
perusal of the catalogue of the Escu- 
rial suggested -to M. Villemain the 
remark, that most of the modern dis- 



19G 



NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 



coverics of wlilch the date and the 
name of the inventor are set down as 
certain, were no more than inventions 
of the Arabs which he had appro- 
priated." — Pillars of Hercules, vol. I., 
page 139. 

Without extending our quotations 
it is sufficient to say that the Eastern 
Arabs, the agents and correspondents 
of the Phoenicians on the Red and 
Indian Seas, had no motive to conceal 
the use of the needle, or to throw 
around it religious rites. It was to 
conceal the extent of their commerce 
beyond the Straits of Gibraltar that 
made this mystery necessary about 
the cup, and stone, and arrow. 

Vasco de Gama, on his arrival in 
the Indian seas,> found the magnetic 
compass in common use. — See as 
above. 

(45) [" Queen of Heaven." P. 155.] 
— " But ye are they that forsake the 
Lord, that forget my holy mountain, 
that prepare a table for that Gad 
[Baal-gad], and that furnish a drink- 
offering to Mini [Ashteroth.] Isaiah 
Ixv. 11, in the margin. The chil- 
dren gather wood, and the fathers 
kindle a fire, and the women knead 
their dough to make cakes to the 
Queen of Heaven." Jeremiah vii. 18. 

See also the passage before quoted 
from Jeremiah xliv. 17, wherein the 
people, after their flight into Egypt, 




QUEEN OF HEAVEN. 



say that they will burn incense to the 
Queen of Heaven, and pour out drink- 
offerings to her as they had done 
their kings, their princes, and the 
people, in the cities of Judah and in 
the streets of Jerusalem." 

(46) [PhoenicianVenus. P. 155.] — 
Cicero says (Lib. iii., Nat Deorum), 
that Astarte was the Syrian Venus. 

(47) [Time of Solomon. P. 156.]— 
For setting up this Madonna of anti- 
quity, either with a cross in her 
arm, or with a child, as she appears 
in some of the medals, is the offence 
that cost Solomon his kingdom. 

"While she is identified by Greek 
authoi's as their Venus, she is clearly 
the Queen of Heaven as at present 
adored, with the story and good cha- 
racter of the Virgin Mary borrowed, 
as the Phoenicians borrowed the story 
of Samson, to add it to the traditions 
of Hercules. So that, upon careful 
inquiry, we find that there is nothing 
new in the world. 

"And Solomon went after Ashte- 
roth, the goddess of the Sidonians," 
&c. 1 Kings xi. 5. The same as 
many of our good Protestants are now 
doing, and setting up her emblem on 
their places of worship. Do they ex- 
pect to incur divine displeasure, as 
Solomon did ? " Wherefore I also said, 
I will not drive them out from before 
you, but they [the Canaanites] shall 
be as thorns in your sides, and 
their gods shall be a snare 
unto you." Judges ii. 4. 

(48) YAll the scholiasts. 
P. 156.]— The error of Taci- 
tus, which has caused him to 
be so much laughed at by 
pedagogues of all degrees, 
was misjudging the Jewish 
nation by the specimens that 
congregated at the metropo- 



NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 



197 



lis — Tyre, For it will be seen, by the 
medals, that both Tyre and Sidon were 
— provincial metropoles. 




SIDONIAN GODDESS AND CHILD. 



(49) [That sentimental animal, the 
jackass. P. 156.] — Astarte, "the 
Phoenician Venus," or Madonna of 
antiquity, with an infant in her arms, 
pointing to an ass standing beneath 
her altar. 

One of the fathers of the Romish 
church would doubtless explain this 
medal thus : " This medal is orthodox, 
because the inscription is in Latin. 
Though still the 'Queen of Heaven,' 
she is no longer ' The Goddess of the 
Sidonians,' but ' The^ai(ro?iess of the 
Sidonians.' The word metropolis in- 
dicating that this city had become the 
seat of a bishop, and the attributes 
of the Virgin Mary are by right ap- 
plied to her in the same manner as 
those of Samson had been assigned to 
Hercules. And now she, like Hercules, 
is deserving the adoration of a saint. 
The jackass, standing beneath her 
altar, is the image of the one on which 
she rode into Egypt, or of the one on 
which her son rode into Jerusalem, 
and therefore worthy to be adored." 

There are an abundance of Protest- 
ants who could see profound senti- 
ment in this exposition, provided 
always it was popular in Paris. 



To dwellers in a Protestant country, 
such an exposition m.ay look like 
trifling. But to the author, who has 
seen the whole population of a city 
following in solemn procession a jack- 
ass, with an image upon it, and heard 
learned divines expounding the spirit- 
ual application of this festival of the 
jackass, it is by no means an unusual 
exhibition of Romish buffoonery. 

(50) [Christian era. P. 156.] — 
This coin may explain a charge un- 
justly brought against the Christ- 
ians — that they destroyed infants in 
their secret meetings. 

In the last era of Phoenician — or 
rather now Syro-Phoenician — com- 
merce, its merchants and mariners 
were doubtless to be found in all the 
important seaports of the Roman em- 
pire ; practising in secret the abomi- 
nations of their peculiar superstitions, 
having, in common with the Christ- 
ians, the same religious emblems, 
crosses, madonnas, &c., while they 
spoke the same language with the 
Oriental Christians — Syro-Greek. 

Those who form their opinions from 
outward appearances would naturally 
confound these two religions of Sy- 
riac origin. 

(51) [Portrayed upon the walls. P. 
157.] — This sacrifice is not referi'ed to 
in Captain Dupaix' reconnoissances, 
but in the woi-k of Stephens it forms 
so prominent a feature as to be selected 
for the frontispiece of his second vol- 
ume on Central America. 

The probable reason for this omis- 
sion by Dupaix may be found in the 
fact that the same parties who offer a 
child to Saturn, also offer a child to 
the cross. It would hardly have done 
to publish such a fact in Spain or 
Mexico in his day, though the great- 
est and most liberal of all Spanish 



198 



NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 



kings, Charles III., was then on the 
throne. 

(52) [For Us central ornament. P. 
157.] — We may repeat here what we 
have said of the sacrificial stone. The 
appearances are in favor of its being 
the production of the ancient inhabit- 
ants, but its connection with the cal- 
endar of the ancients may or may 
not be true. Like all Spanish notions 
of American antiquities, it is more 
likely to be wrong than right. 

(53) [Venus and Ceres. P. 158.] 
— " Astarte was the same as Venus." 
Cal. III., p. 531. We have already 
shown in certain of her attributes 
she was identical with Ceres and 
the Isis of Egypt. As the objects 
of divine honors are usually called 
from their various attributes, this 
confusion of names should not dis- 
turb us. 




THE MALTESE CEOSS. P. 159. 

(54) Lord Kingsborough, vol.VI., p. 
379: " On the opposite side of the rock 
is a circular shield, which is divided 
vertically ; the right is divided into 
two quarters. In the upper appears 
the plan of a city situated on the 
bank of a lake. The lower quarter 
contains various ovals in close rows, 
while underneath the shield are five or- 
namental arrows, horizontally placed. 
To the right appears an unfurled 
standard, which, it is extraordinary. 



should display on its surface a cross 
of the Order of Malta, and at the top 
a helmet, on which is figured the 
head of an eagle, with an hiero- 
glyphic." — Lord Kingsborough, vol. 
VI., p. 429. 

(55) [Adored or worshipped. P. 
160.] — Protestant readers are too apt 
to confound adoration and worship, or 
to consider the distinction like the 
difference between tweedledum and 
tweedledee. But among the heathen 
and the Romanists it is a vital dis- 
tinction. Adoration is due to all 
divinely inspired, and to the sacred 
emblems. But worship is due only 
to the gods, or to God. The system 
is the same, the difference is in names 
only. 

(56) [BisJiop of Chiapa. P. 162.] 
— Don Francisco Nunez de la Vega, 
Bishop of Chiapa, is the new MS. 
burner ! 

The imposture that hardly rises to 
the dignity of a humbug, occupies a 
conspicuous place in the volume of 
Bivero, entitled, on the cover, "Peru- 
vian Antiquities. F. S. Hawks. Put- 
nam." That the reader may see for 
himself, we quote a passage entire 
from Rivei^o. 

" Don Francisco Nunez de la Vega, 
Bishop of Chiapa, possessed, as he 
himself states, in his * Diocesan Con- 
stitutions,' published at Rome in 1702, 
a document in which a certain voy- 
ager or traveller named Votan mi- 
nutely described the countries and 
nations which he had visited. This 
MS., it was found, was written in the 
Tzendal language, and was accompa- 
nied by certain hieroglyphics cut in 
stone ; by order of the same Votan, 
the MS. was to be permanently depo- 
sited in a dark house or cavern in the 
province of Soconusco, and there con- 



NOTES TO CHAPTER Y. 



199 



fided to the custody of a noble Indian 
lady, and of a number of Indians, 
the places of all of whom, as they be- 
came vacant, were to be resupplied. 
Thus it continued preserved for cen- 
turies, perhaps for 2000 years, until 
the bishop above named, Nunez de la 
Vega, in visiting the province, obtain- 
ed possession of the MS., and in the 
year 1690 commanded it to be de- 
stroyed in the public square of Hue- 
gatan, so that the curious notices 
which it contained would have been 
completely lost if there had not ex- 
isted in the hands of Don Ramon de 
Ordonez y Agidar, in Ciudad Real, 
according to his own statement, a copy 
made immediately after the conquest, 
and which is in part published by 
Cabrera." — Page 12. 

People unacquainted with the posi- 
tion and character of the Spanish 
priesthood, have inquired how it was 
possible for a statement to be put in 
circulation, if it was not true, that 
Zumarraga, in the public square of 
Tezcuco, burned the Mexican picture 
records? A perfect answer is con- 
tained in the above quotation. The 
boldness of the imposture is one of 
the grounds of its success, and might 
well apply to the whole priesthood, 
of Spain and her colonies, a remark 
of Cicero, that it was strange they 
could look each other in the face 
without laughing. 

The bishop occupies the place of 
the augur or conjurer in the heathen 
system, or the medicine-man among 
the Indians. 

After the place of the Holy Sep- 
ulchre had been lost for some three 
hundred years, it was revealed to a 
bishop in a dream, say the ancient 
chronicles. The bishop's dream and 



the Holy Scriptures are at issue about 
the location, but what is a declara- 
tion of Scripture to a bishop's dream? 
It was a bishop's dream that dis- 
covered the body of St. James, the 
Apostle, in a marble coffin, in a wood 
at Iria [in Castile], in 797. See Grim- 
SHAW, 179 (F). To such an impos- 
ture is Spain indebted for a patron 
saint. 

(57) [Mural crown ofthePhcenicians. 
P. 163.] — Standing alone, notwith- 
standing its strikingly oriental cast, 
we should hesitate ; but in the midst 
of so many other Phoenician types, 
we insist that we have made out a 
complete case of circumstantial evi- 
dence, which authorizes us to pro- 
nounce it an American Hercules, a 
counterpart of the Phoenician Hercu- 
les, or " Mal-carth" (as he was called) ; 
from Mai and Cardt, the "Prince of the 
City.'-* Here again we must be pardon- 
ed for referring to a statement written 
out at our request by the author of 
"Palestine, Past and Present," after 
this work had been steorotyped, who 
had come to the same conclusion, from 
comparing his own drawings with those 
in Lord Kingsborough. " The Maltese 
images," he adds, " are remarkable for 
their singular positions, and the min- 
gled uncouthness of their sculpture, 
and evidence of excellence in the 
master who executed them." 

(58) [Brazen sivords, P. 164.]—" Yet 
we find their [the early Romans'] 
swords constantly made of bronze." — 
Wilkinson, vol. III., page 245. 

(59) [Daggers. P. 164.]—" They 
[the Egyptians] had even the secret 
of giving to bronze or brass blades a 
certain degree of elasticity, as may be 
seen in the dagger of the Berlin 
Museum." — Ibid., p. 253. 



200 



NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 



(60) [Evidence of barbarism. P. 
164.] — "It is a remarkable fact that 
the first glimpse we obtain of the 
history and manners of the Egyp- 
tians, shows us a nation already ad- 
vanced in all the arts of civilized life, 
the same customs and inventions that 
prevailed in the Augustan era of that 
people." — Ibid., p. 260. 

"Men tilled the gi-ound with bronze, 
iron not yet being known." — Hesiod's 
Works and Days, V., p. 151, 

" The Greeks, in the heroic ages, 
seem to have been ignorant of the use 
of iron." — Robertson's Am., p. 22. 

(61) [Wilkinson. P. 164.]— " The 
chisel which I found at Thebes, which, 
though it contained alloys, is far from 
being brittle, and is easily turned by 
striking it against the stone it was 
once used to cut." — Ibid., page 252. 

(62) [Process known to us as en- 
graving. P. 164.] — " The hierogly- 
phics, or the obelisks, are rather en- 
graved than sculptured, and judging 
from the minute manner in which 
they are executed, we may suppose 
they had adopted the same process as 
engravers, and even in some instances 
employed the wheel and drill." — 
Ibid., page 251. 

(63) [Beside tJiose of copper. P. 
165.] — "Availing myself of this favor- 
able opportunity, I made a large col- 
lection of stone implements, with the 
intention of selecting out of the num- 
ber the most perfect specimens. I 
was most desirous of obtaining metal 
instruments ; and it was not long be- 
fore I procured several of copper 
[bronze?] of various sizes and shapes. 
But what I chiefly wished to discover 
were iron tools ; my inquiries after 
this metal were however fruitless." — 
Dupaix in Lord Kingsborouh, vol. 
VI., page 457. 



" Long experience proves that gold, 
silver, and copper, when wrought, 
whether exposed to the open air or 
buried beneath the surface of the 
earth, will remain for many ages iu 
an uncorroded state ; but this is not 
the case with iron, which from its 
nature is exposed to the attacks of 
rust and moisture, which in time ef- 
fects its entire decomposition." — Ibid. 
■ " The inference that the iron, or 
steel used in the construction of these 
ancient edifices, if any, had, in the 
progress of centuries, decomposed in 
the humid climate of Central America, 
is legitimate. But the probabilities 
are against the use of iron by the 
Central Americans. Hardened bronze, 
or brass, was the most probable metal 
employed in dressing stones, and in 
their sculpture. 

" The only test of a genuine stone 
among the mass of Spanish counter- 
feits, is that some part of the surface 
should present the appearance of hav- 
ing been rubbed by another stone. 
This is substantially the idea of Du- 
paix. 

" I should also observe that stones 
which have been fashioned by the 
simple friction of one against an- 
other, would acquire a plain surface 
from having been ground, and would 
likewise have a certain polish, which 
is in fact perceptible on the surface 
of the slabs, as well as of the lesser 
stones, which enter into the composi- 
tion of the Mosaic ornaments, the 
most interesting feature in these mon- 
uments." — Ibid. 

(64) [As keen an edge as any ive can 
produce. P. 165.] — " But the great 
interest of this lintel was the carving. 
The beam, covered with hieroglyphics 
at Uxmal, was faded and worn. This 
was still in excellent preservation; the 



NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 



201 




THE FORTRESS OF MITLA. 



lines were clear and distinct ; and the 
cutting under any test, and without 
any reference to the people by whom it 
was executed, would be considered as 
indicating great skill and proficiency 
in the art of carving wood. The con- 
sciousness that the only way to give 
a true idea of the character of this 
carving was the production of the 
beams themselves, determined me to 
spare neither labor nor expense to 
have them transported to this city." — 
Yucatan, vol. II., page 406. 

(65) [Drawing of Castanada. P. 
165.] — Speaking of the immense 
blocks of stone still lying in the quar- 
ries near Mitlan, Dupaix remarks — 
Lord Kingsborough, vol. VI., page 
456 — " Proceeding about a league in 
an eastern direction from Mitlan, I 
discovered the ancient and famous 
quarry of stone of the nature of 
granite, which was the bed from 
whence were procured the volumi- 



nous masses employed in the erection 

of these various monuments 

They afterwards had occasion to raise 
from the quarry these enormous blocks 
of which they formed architraves and 
columns, some of which, in an unfin- 
ished state, are even still scattered on 
the surface of the ground. Nearly 
the same is reported by travellers in 
Egypt, who have found at the pre- 
sent time, in the ancient quarries of 
granite, which supplied the materials 
of the colossal figures and obelisks. 
But what, we may inquire, was the 
power employed in raising these 
stones from their primitive bed t" 

We can now readily answer this 
question, by referring to the painting 
on the walls of Sennacherib's palace, 
where is portrayed the whole pro- 
cess of moving a colossal winged 
bull. It is precisely the same pro- 
cess Layard used in removing one of 
them, viz. : a platform, or boat on 



202 



NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 



movable rollers thrown under it. 
The lever moving it from behind, 
•while ropes, fastened in front, vcere 
dragged by muscular power. — See the 
representation in Latard's Nineveh 
and Babylon. 

(66) [^The great pyramid. P. 
166.] — There was probably never a 
military expedition, on a large scale, 
that yielded a net profit to the success- 
ful party ; so that the attempts to ac- 
count for the construction of pyra- 
mids from the wealth acquired by 
the plunder of neighboring nations, is 
as absurd as to explain it by saying 
it was the product of despotism and 
slavery. Every man of common sense 
must be aware that pyramids, like 
other great works, can only be built 
out of the revenues of the country, 
unless the system of borrowing money 
was known to the ancients. 

(67) [Egyptian manufacture. P. 
166.] — "The tin [in the bronzes at 
Nineveh] was probably obtained from 
Phoenicia; and consequently that used 
in the bronzes in the British Museum 
may actually have been exported 
nearly three thousand years ago, from 
the British isles, .... The Sidoni- 
ans, and other inhabitants of the 
Phoenician coast, were the most re- 
nowned workers in metal of the an- 
cient world, and their intermediate 
position between the two great na- 
tions, by which they were alternately 
invaded and subdued, may have been 
the cause of the existence of a mixed 
art amongst them. In the Homeric 
poems they are frequently mentioned 
as the artificers who fashioned em- 
bossed metallic cups and bowls ; and 
Solomon sought cunning men from 
Tyre, &g." — Layard, page 162. 

" la a trench on the south side of 



the ruin was found a small green and 
white bottle, inscribed with Chinese 
characters. A similar relic was brought 
to me by an Arab from a barrow in 
the neighborhood. Such bottles have 
been discovered in Egyptian tombs, 
and considerable doubt exists as to 
their antiquity, and as to the date 
and manner of their importation into 
Egypt. . . . Bottles precisely similar 
are still ofi'ered for sale in the bazaars 
of Cairo, and are used to hold the 
koll or powder for staining the eyes 
of ladies."— I6ic?., page 238. 

" Wilkinson, in his ' Ancient Egyp- 
tians,' vol. II., page 107, gives a draw- 
ing of a bottle precisely similar to 
that described above, and mentions 
one which, according to Rosellini, 
had been discovered in a previously 
unopened tomb of the 18th dynasty, 
but there appears to be considerable 
doubt on the subject." — Ibid. 

" It will be observed that most of 
the Egyptian relics discovered in the 
Assyrian ruins are of the time of the 
18th dynasty [the era of Moses, and 
Joshua, and the Judges], or of the 
15th century before Christ." — Ibid., 
page 240. 

(68) [Form and pattern of their tem- 
ples. P. 167.] — We have established 
the identity of the rock temples of 
Egypt with those of India. But we 
have not insisted that there is a perfect 
identity in i\iQ forms of their idolatry, 
as is the custom among authors, but 
simply that there is a substantial 
identity. The forms of worship vary 
in all ancient nations. The divisions 
of castes are not identical among the 
ancient Egyptians and the Hindoos. 
There are sacred animals, too, in both 
countries, but sacred in difi"erentways. 
In India various animals are apparent- 



NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 



203 



ly sacred in themselves, but holding 
an ill-defined relation to some divinity. 
In Egypt, they are emblems (Ken- 
rick, vol. I., page 385) of divinities 
who also have their images. The 
white bull, even holding a subordi- 
nate position to the statue of Amon 
[Amnion, or the great god], as is man- 
ifest by his being led before the sta- 
tue, according to the following ex- 
tract : — ■ 

" The statue next appears, carried 
in procession by twenty-two priests, 
hidden, all but the feet and heads, by 
the drapery of the platform on which 
the statue is erected. The king walks 
before the god [statue], having a 
staff in one hand, a sceptre in the 
other, and the red crown of the Low 
County on his head. He is preceded 
by a white bull, before whom a priest 
burns incense." — Kenrick, vol. II., 
page 274. 

We may notice here a common 
error in relation to the idolatry of the 
Israelites. In prescribing the mode 
in which he was to be worshipped, 
the God of Israel saw fit to allow the 
use of a ritual, portions of which are 
apparently of Egyptian origin ; but 
when it came to the arrangement of 
the Holy of Holies, there is an entire 
variance. Upon the mercy-seat, where 
(according the Egyptian system, the 
presence of the Divinity would have 
been represented by an emblem) In- 
finite Wisdom saw fit to have itself 
represented by a void space, as the 
proper representative of an invisible 
being. Upon the outer edges of the 
mercy-seat, over the ark, were placed 
two cherubs facing each other, and 
looking down upon the space between 
them, which symbolized the presence 
of Jehovah. Herein was strikingly 



manifest the difference between Je- 
hovah and " the gods of the nations." 
This absence of a visible image, or 
of a material emblem, constantly re- 
minded His people that their God was 
an invisible Spirit, and they that wor- 
ship Him must worship Him in spirit 
and in truth. Upon this mercy-seat 
the Phoenicians would perhaps have 
placed a cross, and behind it a Ma- 
donna and infant. The Philistines 
would have placed there the dove, the 
emblem of the Philistian Astarte. 
[See medals of Askelon.] The Egyp- 
tian would have placed there a cat, 
or a bull [golden calf], or a crocodile, 
with an image of the god a little 
behind and above the altar. " The 
next morning we reached Gerf 
Hossayn, one of the most interesting 
points on the upper part of the river 
Nile. It was somewhat like Abou 
Simbel, being cut out of the solid 
rock. In the large hall which is en- 
tered from the front, are six colossal 
statues, each of which is elegantly 
painted, and the colors remain fresh 
and brilliant. Behind each open space 
between the statues is a niche in 
which three figures are seated. Pass- 
ing through this elegant hall, once 
magnificently beautiful, you enter the 
second room, of which the ceiling is 
supported by four square columns, 
and beyond this is the Adytum [Holy 
of Holies] , with altar and four seated 
statues behind it, waiting vainly, as 
they have waited so many centuries, 
for worshippers." — Corresp. 

The history of the nation of Israel 
is the history of a continued struggle 
between these two systems of repre- 
senting divinity — a continual struggle 
between the spiritual worship of an 
invisible Jehovah and the sensuous 



204 



NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 



representation by images and emblems 
of the divine power. 

The sin of the golden calf was 
apparently not the introduction of a 
new god, but rather an attempt to 
conform their worship of God to that 
of the surrounding nations by intro- 
ducing emblems — by representing the 
presence of the Almighty by the em- 
blem of a golden calf. So with the 
sin of Micah, who had a house of 
gods, or rather a house dedicated to 
God, in which idolatrous emblems 
were used in the worship of the In- 
visible. 

The introduction of these foreign 
and pagan elements into Christianity 
has led to a great deal of infidelity. 
A gentleman, who had been taught 
that the cross was an emblem of 
Christian origin, was led into infide- 
lity by discovering it upon the Egyp- 
tian ruins, and in use there as an 
emblem. 

(69) [Equal to Thebes hi extent. P. 
167.] — " For five days did I wander 
up and down among these crumbling 
monuments of a city which I hazard 
little in saying must have been one of 
the largest the world has ever seen." 
— Norman's Yucatan, New York, 
1843, page 108. 

" Evidently the city of Chichen was 
an antiquity when the foundations of 
the Pantheon at Athens, and the 
Cloaca Maxima at Rome, were laid." 
—Ibid., p. 177. 

" Ruins of Palenque, as described 
by Del Rio, London, 1822, are 75 
miles in circumference, length 32, and 
breadth 12 miles ; about equal to 
Thebes in' Egypt, full of monuments, 
statues, and inscriptions." — Frazer's 
Magazine, vol. I., p. 216. 

(70) [Most expensive of all labor. 



P. 167.] — Slaves, when they labor, 
must be fed, and experience has de- 
monstrated that the waste attending 
their employment, and that of hired 
taskmasters, is more than the savings 
in wages. Money would have been 
saved by the kings of Egypt had they 
constructed their pyramids by con- 
tract. With all its attendant evils, 
this kind of labor has been thought 
necessary in those climates where 
valuable crops are to be suddenly 
gathered and cured when free labor 
cannot be depended upon. 

(71) [Even gold is valueless ivitliout 
a market. P. 167.] — In the year 
• 1848, gold dust was at one time ex- 
changed for Chili dollars, at the rate 
of eight silver dollars for an oz. of 
gold, while its real value was more 
than seventeen dollars. 

(12) [Row-boats. P. 168.]— "Their 
vessels were of inconsiderable bur- 
then, and mostly without decks. They 
had only one mast, which was erected 
or taken down at pleasure. They were 
strangers to the use of anchors. All 
their operations in sailing were clum- 
sy and unskilful. They turned their 
observations towards the stars, which 
were improper for regulating their 
course, and their mode of observing 
them was inaccurate and fallacious. 
When they had finished a voyage, 
they drew their paltry barks ashore, 
as savages do their canoes, and these 
remained on dry land, until the sea- 
son of returning to sea approached. 
It is not, then, in the heroic ages of 
Greece that we can expect to observe 
the science of navigation and the spi- 
rit of discovery making any consider- 
able progress. During the period of 
disorder and ignorance, a thousand 
causes concurred in restraining curi- 



NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 



205 



ositj^ and enterprise within very nar- 
row bounds." — Robinson's America, 
page 22. 

" Whatever acquaintance with the 
remote regions of the earth the Phoe- 
nicians or Carthaginians may have 
acquired, was concealed from the 
rest of mankind with a mercantile 
jealousy. Everything relative to the 
course of their navigation was not 
only a mystery of trade, but a secret 
of state. ... As neither the progress 
of the Phoenician or Carthaginian 
discoveries, nor the extent of their 
navigation, were communicated to the 
rest of mankind, all memorials of 
their extraordinary skill in naval 
affairs seem in a great measure to 
have perished when the maritime 
power of the former was annihilated, 
&c. . . . Their [the Greeks'] early 
voyages, the subject of which was 
piracy rather than commerce, were so 
inconsiderable, that the expedition of 
the Argonauts from the coast of Thes- 
saly to the Euxine Sea [to plunder 
Colchis, the western terminus of the 
northern caravan route, viz., to ob- 
tain the golden fleece], appeared such 
an amazing effort of skill and courage 
as entitled the conductors of it to be 
ranked among the demigods, and ex- 
alted the vessel in which they sailed 
to a place among the heavenly con- 
stellations." — Ibid., page 21. 

" Amazing instances occur of their 
ignorance, even of those countries 
which lay within the narrow limits 
to which their commerce was con- 
fined. When the Greeks had assem- 
bled tbeir combined fleet against 
Xerxes at Egina, they thought it un- 
advisable to sail to Samos, because 
they believed the distance between 
that island and Egina to be as great 
as the distance between Egina and 



the Pillars of Hercules. They were 
either utterly unacquainted with all 
the parts of the globe beyond the Me- 
diterranean Sea, or what knowledge 
they had of them was founded on con- 
jecture, or derived from the informa- 
tion of a few persons whom curiosity 
and the love of science had prompted 
to travel by land into the Upper Asia, 
or by sea into Egypt, the ancient seats 
of wisdom and arts. After all the 
Greeks learned from them, they ap- 
pear to have been ignorant of the 
most important facts on which the 
accurate and scientific knowledge of 
the globe is founded." — Ibid., p. 22. 

"Modern writers make a sad jum- 
ble whenever they touch ancient navi- 
gation. They transfer the ideas de- 
rived from our practice, which, in 
most things is changed, in some re- 
versed. A Phoenician vessel was able 
to stow five hundred emigrants, with 
provisions, for a long voyage. To 
apply to their navigation the passages 
descriptive of the row-boats of the 
Greeks and Romans is a solecism and 
an anachronism. They neither made 
their way by the speed of oars, nor 
sheltered themselves by hauling out 
their vessels." — Pillars of Hercides. 

(73) [Were borrowed also. P, 
170.] — " The arts passed from Assy- 
ria to the sister nations, and to Ionia. 
There is much in the bas-reliefs I have 
just described, to remind us of the 
early works of the Greeks immedi- 
ately after the Persian war, and to 
illustrate a remark of the illustrious 
Niebuhr, that ' a critical history of 
Greek art would show how late the 
Greeks commenced to practise the 
arts.' After the Persian war, a new 
world opens at once, and from that 
time they advanced with great strides. 
But everything that was produced 



206 



NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 







r^wvi 




rv/VAfv 




twhf^ 



















IONIC COLUMN FOUND AT NINEVEH. 

before the Persian war — a few of those 
works are still extant — was, if we 
judge of it without prejudice, alto- 
gether barbarous." — Layard's Nine- 
veh and Babylon, page 393. 



■Tiimnii' 



ll'iii'iiii'iiiiiiriiiiininiiiiiriii'iiii''iiiiri!ii''iririif'iiiii'f 




(74) DORIC COLUMNS IN YUCATAN. P. 170. 

(75) [Ionic in the ruins oj" Nineveh. 
P. 170.] — "Amongst the objects in 
metal was an elegant casket, or ves- 
sel, probably of gold or silver, the 
upper part of which, shaped like the 
wall of a castle, with battlements 
and towers, rested upon a column 
whose capital was formed by Ionic 
volutes — another instance of the use 



of this order of architecture on the 
banks of the Tigris."— 7&i'cZ., p. 380. 

(76) [Their mythology even was 
foreign. P. 170.] — "I can by no 
means impute to accident the resem- 
blance that exists in the rites of Bac- 
chus [Baal-Peor], in Egypt and in 
Greece ; in this case they would not 
have differed so essentially from the 
Grecian manners, and thej' might 
have been traced to more remote an- 
tiquity : neither will I afiBrm that 
these or that any other religious cere- 
monies were borrowed of Greece by 
the Egyptians. I rather think that 
Melampas found all these particulars 
which relate to the worship of Bacchus, 
from Cadmus and his Tyriau com- 
panions, when they came from Phoe- 
nicia to what is now called Boeotia. 

" L. Egypt has certainly communi- 
cated to Greece the names of almost 
all the gods. That they are of barba- 
rous [foreign] origin I am convinced, 
by my different researches. The names 
of Neptune and Discori I have 
mentioned before; with these, if 
we except Juno, Vesta, Themis, 
and the Nereids, the names of 
all the other deities have always 
been familiar to Egypt. In this 
instance I do but repeat the 
opinions of the Egyptians." — 
Herodotus, book II., sec. 49. 

(77) [Scholiast on Hesiod. P. 
170.] — " The zodiac, in which 
the sun performs his annual 
course, is the true career which Her- 
cules traverses in the fable of the 
twelve labors ; and his marriage with 
Hebe, the goddess of youth, whom he 
espouses after he has ended his labors, 
denotes the renewal of the year at 
the end of each solar revolution." — 
J. DiACOMUs' Schol. ad Hesiod, The- 
ogony, page 165. 



NOTES TO CHAPTER Y. 



207 



(78) [FaUed court of Pluto. P. 
170.] — " The tomb which the inscrip- 
tions of the Roman times call that of 
Memnon is really that of Rameses V. 
Everything, according to this author 
[Champollion], relates to the soul of 
the defunct king, which, being mys- 
tically identified with the sun, is re- 
presented as passing successively 
through the twelve hours of the day 
and of the night. The same idea is 
astronomically exhibited on one of 
the ceilings. A female figure, bent 
so that the body, legs, and arms oc- 
cupy three sides of a symbol of the 
heavens ; twelve divisions in the up- 
per, and as many in the lower part, 
represent the day and night. During 
the day, the sun is accompanied by 
various divinities, changing in each 
horary division ; at night his bark 
is towed by them. Adjoining to them 
are tables of the influences of the 
stars on different parts of the body 
during each of the twenty-four hours. 
The hall which precedes that in which 
the sarcophagus is found, is conse- 
crated to the four genii of Amenthe, 
the Egyptian Hades. In the most 
complete tomb it exhibits the appear- 
ance of the king before the forty-two 
judges, or assessors of Osiris. In 
that of Rameses V. are forty-two co- 
lumns of hieroglyphics, containing 
the laudatory sentences which the 
judges pronounced." — Kenrick, vol. 
I., page 142. 

(79) [The Atlantis. P. 171.]— 
" It was a priest of Sais who com- 
municated to Solon the tradition 
of the existence of the island of At- 
lantis, as we learn from the Timeus 
and Criteas of Plato." — Lord Kings- 
borough's note, vol. VI., page 492. 

The following is the passage as 



translated from Plato, by Lord Kings- 
borough, page 493. 

" This island [Cuba?] is larger than 
[the portion of] Africa and Asia 
[known to the Greeks] united, and 
from it there was a passage to other 
islands, which was practicable to voy- 
agers of that age ; and from the lat- 
ter to an entire continent, which was 
situated opposite to them, being skirt- 
ed by that which is the true sea, for 
the portion enclosed within the straits 
[of Gibraltar], of w^hich we have 
been speaking, resembles a lake, to 
which admission is afforded by a nar- 
row inlet ; but the other is in reality 
a sea, and the land which encompasses 
it may, with the greatest truth and 
justice, be designated a continent." 

The prophecy of Seneca, in rela- 
tion to the country beyond the ultima 
thule in his Medea, is well explained 
by his intimacy with the writings of 
Plato. 

(80) [The central plateau. P. 172.] 
— Between Fort Riley, in Kansas, 
and the Rocky Mountains, the soil 
is too light for cultivation, except 
in the valleys of the rivers, and is 
destitute of timber, except along the 
margins of the watercourses. The 
climate of this vast region is proba- 
bly the most exhilarating upon this 
Continent, and the Indians found 
there and in its southern extension 
appear to be the most perfectly devel- 
oped of the aboriginal races. 

The author has found the summer 
climate here, substantially that of 
Mexico in winter, in a short season 
completely resuscitating his health, 
after he had been pronounced incura- 
bly diseased by his physician. 

(81) [Bushmen [Pigmies). P. 
173.] — Here we have another Greek 



208 



NOTES TO CHAPTER V. 



fable to turn into a reality, the pig- 
mies of the interior of Africa, -who, 
according to Homer, waged a relent- 
less war with the cranes. 

The mountain range that extends 
southward from Nubia to the extreme 
southern limit of that continent, with 
divers breaks and interruptions, is in- 
habited by a race of such insignifi- 
cance as almost to deserve the name 
of pigmies, though better known as 
Bushmen. 

(82) ^Original dispersion. P. 173.] 
— The author's personal knowledge 
of African races extends no further 
than to those brought to the West In- 
dies by the slave trade, viz., negroes 
for the most part. The rest of his 
knowledge is second-hand informa- 
tion. These appear to change their 
appearance materially, even in the 
hot and humid portions of our conti- 
nent, while on the high table-lands 
their extinction is rapid. 

" Of the Mexican Negro race I 
never knew but two, and one of them 
held the post of captain in the army, 
and the other was the naked alcalde, 
mentioned in a former chapter, who 
was discharging the functions of 
' Judge of First Instance.' The 
reasons assigned for the disappear- 
ance of this race from Mexico, after 
HO large an importation of slaves as 
that which took place in the last cen- 
tury, is the incongeniality of the cli- 
mate of Mexico, particularly of the 
table-lands, to the negro constitution. 
At the breaking out of the Mexican 
revolution, almost the only negro 
slaves in the country were in the de- 
partment of Vera Cruz. The sugar- 
planters of the hot country of the 
interior, finding it impossible to carry 
on their estates bv the use of negro 



slaves, attempted to reduce the mor- 
tality among their working people by 
raising up a race of those disgusting- 
looking beings called Zambos, a cross 
of negroes and Indians ; but it was 
attended with the usual ill success 
that has followed every attempt to 
cross or intermingle difi'erent and dis- 
tinct races of men, animals, or even 
plants." — Mexico and its Eeliyion, 
page 311. 

(83) [Thousands of years. P. 
173.] — The close resemblance be- 
tween the apparently most ancient 
of these works and those of the Egyp- 
tians and other Eastern civilizations, 
does not involve the idea of a common 
origin or of intercourse, but only 
leads to the suggestion that the hu- 
man race, in its progress, naturally 
follows the same path, whether upon 
the eastern or western continent, and 
that it is separated by a cycle of thou- 
sands of years from the civilization of 
our day. ..." I rest the theory that 
what of this kind we have seen at the 
city of Mexico are but fragments from 
the wreck that befell the American 
civilization of antiquity, which had 
succumbed before the inroads of 
northern savages. This is sufficient 
inquiry into antiquities till we come 
to the Museum.'' — Ibid., page 246. 

The further we go from the centre 
of this ancient population, the moro 
modern and varied the original type, 
until we reach Papantla, in the state 
of Vera Cruz, where we are presented 
with an entirely new style of pyra- 
mid. 

" The pyramid of Papantla," says 
Humboldt, " is not constructed like 
the pyramids of Cholula and Mexico. 
The only materials employed are im- 
mense stones. Mortar is distinguished 



NOTES TO CHAPTER Y. 



209 



in the seams. The edifice, however, 
is not so remarkable for its size as for 
its symmetry, the polish of the stones, 
and the great regularity of their cut. 
The base of the pyramid is an exact 
square, each side being eighty-two 
feet in length. The perpendicular 
height appears not to be more than 
from fifty-two to sixty-five feet. This 
monument, like all the Mexican teo- 
callis, is composed of several stages. 
Six are still distinguishable, and a 
seventh appears to be concealed by 
the vegetation with which the sides 
of the pyramid are covered. A great 
stairway of fifty-seven steps conducts 
to the truncated top of the teocalli, 
Avhere the human victims were sacri- 
ficed. On each side of the great stairs 
is a flight of small stairs. The facing 
of the stories is adorned with hiero- 
glyphics, in which serpents and croco- 
diles, carved in relievo, are discerni- 
ble. Each story contains a great 
number of square niches, symmetri- 
cally distributed. In the first story 
we reckon twenty-four on each side, 
in the second twenty, and in the third 
sixteen. The number of these niches 
in the body of the pyramid is three 
hundred and sixty-six, and there are 
twelve in the stairs toward the east." 
— Essai Politique, vol. II., p. 172. 

(84) [^Mounds of our Indians. P. 
174.] — In Stephens's Yucatan, vol. 
II., page 343, we have an account of 
a modern penknife found among a 
jarful of antiques, in an excavated 
funeral mound. 

The articles the deceased valued 
14 



most were undoubtedly those that 
were selected. 

(85) [0/" Roman lineaments. P. 
174.] — No person can have run his 
eyes over the plates of Castanada 
without being struck with the great 
prominency given to the nose. If 
that peculiarity of the nose is Etrus- 
can in its origin, as insisted upon by 
many, then we should claim the an- 
cient Central Americans as Etrus- 
cans. For the author neither saw 
sculptured upon a stone, or in any 
drawing of ruins, an Indian physi- 
ognomy. 

(86) [Valley of Mexico. P. 174.] 
— As soon as we rise to the 
plain of the Anahuac the items of 
sculpture become isolated, as remark- 
ed in the text, like the waifs from a 
foundered vessel. The finest of these 
having been dug out of funeral 
mounds, like the famous slab from 
the mound [pyramid ?] of Cholula. 

But as soon as we come again into 
the hot country, we find within the 
jurisdiction of Cordova, at the old 
town of Guatusca, we have a sacred 
structure not far inferior to that of 
Papantla. It is thus described by Du- 
paix in Lord Kingsborough, vol. VI. : 

"XII. This represents a goddess," 
&c. 

(87) [Ten men to a ton. P. 175.] 
— "How could commerce be car- 
ried on in vessels that required oars 
to pull them at the rate of ten men 
to a ton, the crews of which had to 
land for their meals?" — Pillars of 
Hercules, page 186. 



CHAPTER VI. 

SPAIN FROM THE TRADITIONAL ERA TO THE RISE OF CASTILE. 

The beginning of the ''historie of Spaine," 210 — "Osiris Denis, King of 
Egypt," succors Tartesse (Cadiz), 213 — " Hercules the Great, son of Osiris," 
slays the Gerions, and again relieves Cadiz, 214 — " Osiris Denis" identified 
as Rameses IV., 216 — Canonization of Hercules, 219 — Spain under the suc- 
cessors of Hercules, 220 — Why Neptune was first deified by the Libyans, 
221 — Tyrians migrate to Tartesse, 222 — The Grecian Hercules at Tartesse, 
223 — An unpoetical picture of him, 224 — The true character of Hercules, 
224 — An immense yield of the silver mines, 226 — The traditional account 
of their discovery, 228 — Rise of the Carthaginian commonwealth, 230 — 
Carthaginians invited to Spain, 231 — Spain under the Carthaginians and 
Romans, 231 — Reasons for inviting the Moslems into Spain, 232 — Our in- 
debtedness to the Spanish Arabs, 234 — Cause of the decline of Arianism, 
236 — Civilization of the Saracens peculiar, 237 — The time and place of Ma- 
homet's birth, 238 — Cause of the success of the Saracens, 239 — Tarik in- 
vades Spain, 240 — Gothic preparations for defence, 241 — Traditions asso- 
ciated with the field of Gaudalete, 241 — The moral power of Tarik, 242 — 
How the " faithful" regarded the battle, 244 — The Christians imitate the 
Egyptians on the same field, 244— The first day of the battle, 246— The 
battle of Gaudalete continued, 247 — The religious results of the victory, 248 
— The genius of the Arabs for the arts of peace, 248 — The Caliphate of Cor- 
dova, 250 — Its rapid growth and prosperity, 251 — Progress of learning 
among the Arabs, 254 — They disseminate it through Europe, 257 — The 
efi'ect of this civilization, 258 — The fabulous histories of Mexico drawn from 
Cordova, 258 — Our indebtedness to the Arabs, 261 — Compelled to follow 
Spanish historians, 262. 

From the study of antique ruins we must now turn to 
the history of the Spanish peninsula — a land noted from 
remote antiquity as the battle-field of conflicting races. 
Upon that soil representatives of the three grand divi- 
sions of the human family have met in hostile arraj^-, and 
near the straits, at divers times, by the chance of battle, 

(210) 



BEGINNING OF THE "HISTORIE OF SPAINE." 211 



decided its possession. The contest between the Mauri- 
tanians [Libyans] and Celts, for the possession of the 
jDeninsula, began with our historic period. An old chroni- 
cle of the sixteenth century, translated by Edward Grim- 
shaw, and printed at London, 1612, folio,* narrates the 
story of Gerion and his three sons, who were Libyans. 
This family cruelly oppressing the people of Spain, Osiris 
Denis j- [Rameses IV.], king of Egypt, generously came 



* " The Generall Historie of 
Spaine ; written in French, hy Lewis 
Materne Torqvet. 1583. Translated 
into English, a?id continued unto these 
times, 6^ Edward Grimshaw. London. 
1612." This ponderous folio is for 
the present purpose much more 
valuable than histories of a later 
date. The late historians having 
omitted a large mass of traditional 
matter, which seems to have had a 
much better foundation than a larger 
mass of Romish origin, which has 
found its way into standard histories, 
though possessing no other claim 
to truth than the license of an In- 
quisitor. 

f The reader may smile at this 
combination of the name of the Egyp- 
tian god, supposed to preside over the 
destinies of the souls of the deceased 
— the god of purgatory, and of the 
final judgment — and the Celtic patro- 
nymic, Denis. Whether this prefix was 
intended simply to indicate that this 
king was allowed a royal burial, by 
a decision of the Court of Osiris — 
that is, put into the list of Egyptian 
saints, to whom sacred offerings were 
to be made — or a confounding of the 
popular god of the Egyptians with 
the name of this king, we have no 
means of determinine;. 



" The Sethos of the lists [of Egyp- 
tian kings], and the monuments is 
Setei-Menephthah II. He is called 
Osirei-Menephthah by Rosellini and 
Wilkinson, as the figure of Osiris oc- 
curs instead of Set, in some varia- 
tions of the shield." — Kejstrick, vol. 
II., p. 253. 

" Armais of the ancient authors, 
is the Osirei I. of the monuments, 
1385 B. c." — Wilkinson, vol. I., page 
48. London. 1837. 

Captain Head speaks of Osiris as 
the father of Osirtasen ; also, " The 
principal deities, Osiris and Isis, re- 
presented the sun and moon, and were 
thought to have unlimited power over 
terrestrial afiairs." — Captain C. F. 
Head's Journey from India. London. 
1833. Page 32. 

This last is probably the true rea- 
son of these divinities obtaining such 
popularity in Egypt as to eclipse all 
the other gods, and lastly, obtaining 
even popularity at Rome, in the de- 
cline of the empire. 

" Osiris being king, instructed the 
Egyptians in the arts of civilization, 
teaching them agriculture, enacting 
laws for them, and establishing the 
worship of the gods, and afterwards 
traversed the world for the same pur- 
pose, subduing the nations, not by 



212 BEGINNING OF THE ^^HISTORIE OF SPAINE. 



to their relief with a mixed army of Egyptians, Syrians 
[Phoenicians], and Africans, and in hattell slew Gerion, the 
father : — " This is the first battell that was given in Spaine 
that any mention was made of since the deluge. And for 
that he came neither to conquer nor to enrich himself, 
being moved by zeal of justice." Then the chronicler 
goes on to say that this king returned to his own country 
without securing any advantage to himself. He even 



arms, but persuasion, and especially 
by the charms of music and poetry, 
which gave the Greeks occasion to 
identify him with Dionusos." — Ken- 
rick, vol. I., page 344. 

" All Egyptians do not worship the 
same gods in a similar manner, ex- 
cept Isis and Osiris, the latter of 
whom is said to be Dionusos; these 
all worship in a similar manner." — 
Herodotus, II., sec. 42. 

"But that which made the Osirian 
worship so popular in Egypt in time 
of the Pharaohs, as it served after- 
wards to diffuse Isaic religion through 
the Roman empire, was its connection 
with the mysterious subject of the 
state of man after death." — Kenrick, 
vol. I., page 341. 

The upshot of our present informa- 
tion is, that the Egyptians deified and 
worshipped their deceased kings and 
someof their benefactors, who were not 
royal, and queens even. So that, in- 
stead of saying that the gods ruled over 
Egypt for the first 17,000 years of the 
kingdom, we should read, their kings, 
for the first 17,000, or rather for the 
first 170 years of the kingdom, con- 
stituted their gods of the first class. 
And that the kings that ruled for the 
balance of the 34,201, or rather the 
342-01- years before Menes, were 



held to be gods of the intermediate 
class — demigods. The Egyptian priests 
must be regarded as all other idola- 
trous priests are and always have 
been, liars by instinct, and cheats by 
profession ; for idolatry and the nega- 
tion of the moral principles are al- 
most synonymous. Men begin to 
adopt idolatrous ideas as they ap- 
proximate the point of total depra- 
vity, and when they have reached 
the depths of Hindoo degeneracy, 
they have reached at the same time 
the perfection of idolatry, as it was 
in Egypt in the time of Herodotus. 
When a Romish priest is considered 
poor authority for statements of fact, 
can it be supposed that a pagan Egyp- 
tian priest would hesitate at any 
falsehood that he supposed would add 
dignity to his god when conversing 
with Hex'odotus ? For this reason we 
find the whole theory of Egyptian 
mythology incorrectly stated by that 
father of history. 

I supposed that I had become 
pretty well versed in total depravity, 
until a Bengalee was brought before 
me to swear out a bench warrant, 
when I learned that there was still a 
lower depth than I had supposed, a 
want of conception of moral wrong in 
the commission even of perjury. 



OSIRIS DENIS SUCCORS CADIZ. 213 



restored the seigniory of the Turdetanians to the three 
sons of Gerion, with an admonition " not to follow the 
wretched avarice of their father, lest their end should be 
like his." 

The reader will at once recognise in this scrap of tradi- 
tional history an explanation of the battle scene upon the 
walls of the palace of Kameses IV., at Medinet-Aboo, to 
which his attention was called in the last chapter. This, 
as yet, is the only instance discovered, of a battle, in 
whole or in part, fought by Egyptians upon the sea ; nor 
is it surprising, as the sea was unclean according to their 
superstition. In this action the Egyptian vessels are 
represented as galleys, with sails and oars, while those of 
the enemy are pictured as ocean ships, viz., propelled 
wholly by the wind. People of the same race, at least 
wearing similar armor to the enemy, are seen fighting in 
the Egyptian ranks. It is in fact the portraiture of a civil 
contest in which the Egyptians participate.* The dates 



* "Anaval fight between the Egyp- The above author supposes these 
tians and the nation whom they have foreigners in the Egyptian service to 
just before defeated by land. It is have been mercenaries permanently 
the only representation of a naval in Egyptian service. The Gerions 
battle remaining among the Egyptian would most probably have both Lib- 
monuments. The Egyptian vessels yans and Celts in their army, 
have both oars and sails, those of the From remote antiquity the Libyans 
enemy sails only. They differ in of Mauritania, as well as those dwell- 
their build. The prow of the Egyp- ing further to the eastward, have been 
tian vessel is the head of a lion, of noted as mercenaries in the armies 
the other that of a water-fowl. It is of different nations. This represent- 
remarkable that among the crew of ation may be taken either way — that 
the hostile vessels are many of the Libyans only are intended to be re- 
same nation, distinguished by their presented as fighting on both sides, 
helmet, with the horn and disk, who or it may be intended to represent 
serve in the army of the enemy." — Celts and Libyans. 
Kenkick, vol. II., page 279. 



214 HERCULES SLAYS THE GERIONS. 



too upon the walls well correspond with those of our 
author, if we make allowance for the error of 218 years 
in the chronology of the Alexandrian translators [the 
LXX.], as already explained in the last chajDter. The 
events immediately succeeding being fixed on or about 
the time when Jacob and his sons went down into Egypt. 
Thus, 300 years after this history was written, it is sub- 
stantially verified by discoveries upon the walls of an 
Egyptian ruin. 

Our author says further this " Osiris had many sons,* 
among the which was Hercules the Great, whom they 
surname the Egyptian Apollo, Mars, and Oran." He then 
goes on to recount the exploits of Hercules, beginning 
with the "notable punishment" he inflicted on the three 
sons of Gerion for their ingratitude. For this Hercules 
having collected a great army of divers nations, he passed 
into Spain, where he found the Gerions ready to receive 
him and give him battle. But, he being grieved at the 
thought that so much innocent blood should be shed for 
the offence of these three men, he oifered to fight them all 
in single combat, which offer being accepted by the 
Gerions, they were all " slaign." For this victory he was 
honored by the Turdetanians and other Spaniards. " Her- 
cules," continues our author, " after he had settled their 
afiairs, and planted two pillars, the one in Europe and 
the other in Affrick, and two others in the island still 



* According to Lepslus, the 20th thers and sons of Rameses IV., thus 

dynasty begins with Rameses IV., confirming our chronicler. Though 

and his four successors bear the title Wilkinson, vol. I., page 76, places 

of Rameses V., VI., VII., VIII. Rameses III., IV., V., and VI. in the 

These four are supposed to be bro- 19th dynasty. 



HERCULES. 



215 



called Gadir [Cadiz or Tartesse], for a mark and testi- 
mony of conquest and toyle, lie took his course towards 
Italic," having intrusted the government to Hispal, one 
of his captains. This man dying soon after was suc- 
ceeded by Hispan, " a wise and an active man, and a lover 
of virtue, as they write of him." From this Hispan we 
have the present name of that country — Hispaniola. Her- 
cules returned to Spain after the death of Hispan, and for 
many years governed the country in person, and then, our 
author adds, what is more than doubtful, " he died there, 
and was buried in the island of Tartesse in a sumptuous 
and stately tomb."* This Hercules reigned afterwards in 
Egypt under the title of Rameses V.,-|" succeeding his 
father, Rameses the Fourth, as we shall presently show. 



* It is not unnatural that Cadiz, or 
Tartesse, should be claimed as the 
burial-place of Hercules, considering 
the great honors that city bestowed 
on his memory. 

t Herodotus not only tells us " the 
Egyptians do not worship heroes," 
but he also says, "Hercules is cer- 
tainly one of the most ancient deities 
of Egypt, and as they [the Egyptian 
priests, most probably] themselves 
affirm, is one of the twelve who were 
produced from the eight gods 17,000 
years before the reign of Amasis." — 
B. 2, p. 83, sec. xliii. 

The Egyptian priests evidently de- 
signed to mislead Herodotus in rela- 
tion to the mysteries of their religion, 
and also conceal from him the rela- 
tion which the kings approved of 
Osiris held to their gods. 

He is not even consistent with him- 
self, for he states, " The successor of 
Pheron, as the same priests informed 



me, was a citizen of Memphis. His 
shrine [?] is still to be seen at Mem- 
phis ; it is situated at the south of the 
temple of Vulcan, and is very magni- 
ficently decorated." — Book 2, sec. 
cxii. 

" The priests afterwards recited to 
me from a book the names of 330 
sovereigns [successors of Menes] ; in 
this continued series 18 were Ethio- 
pians." — B, 2, sec, c. 

Though so much learning and in- 
dustry have been expended in correct- 
ing from the monuments the historical 
lists of Egyptian kings, no allowance 
seems to have been made for the 
effect the decisions of the court of the 
god Osiris had upon these lists. Those 
who had conferred great benefits on 
the country, though they were not 
even of the royal family, would be 
buried in the sepulchres of the kings, 
as in the case of the Jewish high- 
priest, Jehoida (2 Chron. xxiv. 16) — 



216 



DENIS — DIONUSOS? 



We cannot suppose these two celebrated heroes, father 
and son,* usually placed at the beginning of the twentieth 
dynasty, to have been of the unmixed Egyptian faith, as 
it would involve an absurdity. They certainly could not 
record upon the walls of their palace exploits that made 
them impure in the eyes of their co-religionists. If they 
were of that heretic family usually called shepherd kings 
as a reproach ; viz., kings of " low caste" — hyksos, then 
we must believe the forty- tvv^o judges, the assessors of the 
court of the god Osiris, were of the same faith also. And 
from the laudatory sentences recorded on the walls of 



the same custom, to the extent of a 
kingly burial prevailing among the 
Jews. In this way we may account 
for the enormous number of 330 kings 
in the period above mentioned. The 
lists, too, before whom incense was 
to be burned would not contain the 
names of kings who had been denied 
royal sepulture. 

Wilkinson makes the arrival of 
Joseph contemporaneous with Osir- 
tasen I., of the 16th dynasty [1706 
B, c], and his death during the reign 
of Osirtasen II. [1635 b. c], of the 
17th dynasty.— Vol. I., p. 42. 

There are many and serious objec- 
tions to fixing upon Rameses Y. as 
Hercules, but not so many or so great 
as there would be in fixing on Ra- 
meses the Great [the 2d], or indeed 
on any other king of Egypt. The 
truth is, this discovery of the deifica- 
tion or canonization of the Egyptian 
kings is a new idea to the learned, 
and its effects on Egyptian history 
were not duly weighed before our pre- 
sent work was written. 

* " The principal memorials of 
Rameses V. are the lateral inscriptions 



of the obelisk, which Thothmes I. 
[of the 18th dynasty] erected at Kar- 
nak. His tomb at Bab-el-Melook is 
small ; the sarcophagus remains in 
it, but has been broken. Rameses 
VI. has in several places effaced the 
name of his brother, as if some hos- 
tility had preceded his elevation to 
the throne ; but we have no memo- 
rials of his reign, and can only con- 
jecture that it was long, from the 
unusual amount of labor bestowed on 
his tomb. It is 342 feet in length, 
descending by a gradual slope to the 
depth of 25 feet below the ground, 
and divided into a number of cham- 
bers. The whole surface of the walls 
and ceilings is covered with a profu- 
sion of colored sculptures of minute 
size, chiefly astronomical and myth- 
ical. One of them is the judgment 
scene before Osiris, already de- 
scribed." — Kenrick, vol. II., page 283. 
It is more likely that religious 
fanaticism was the moving cause of 
the mutilation of his public memo- 
rials, than the unnatural envy of a 
brother. 



EGYPTIAN CANONIZATION. 



217 



their tombs we adopt this hypothesis, at the risk of in- 
curring a good deal of ridicule.* These sentences enti- 
tled them to receive certain divine honors as benefactors 
of mankind — honors analogous to those the Roman Catho- 
lic church bestows on the dead it canonizes.^ The Roman 
Catholic institution called the Council of Rites, whose 
office it is to adjudge and admit the spirits of deceased 
persons to the adoration of saints, is analogous to this 
court of OsiriSjJ if not actually borrowed from it, at the 



* " The tomb which the inscription 
of the Roman times calls that of 
Memnon, is really that of Rameses 
v., the Meiamun, or his successor, 
according as Champollion asserts. 
Everything, according to this author, 
refers to the soul of the deceased 
king, which, being mystically identifi- 
ed with the sun, is represented as pass- 
ing successively through the twelve 
hours of the day and of the night. 
The same idea is astronomically re- 
presented on the ceilings. ... In 
the most complete tombs it exhibits 
the appearance of the king before the 
forty-two judges, or assessors of Osiris. 
In that of Rameses V. there are forty- 
two columns of hieroglyphics, con- 
taining the laudatory sentences which 
[each of] the judges pronounced." — 
Ibid., vol. I., p. 142. 

f It is quite difficult for Protest- 
ants to comprehend the distinction 
between adoration and worship, as in 
their system the words are synony- 
mous. But in the mind of a Catho- 
lic there is a clear distinction. He 
worships God, but only adores the 
saints, and certain religious emblems. 
Dupaix speaks of " the holy Latin 
cross, which we adore." — Loed Kings- 
borough, vol. VI., p. 481. That is, 



they concede to such objects divine 
honors, inferior to those they pay to 
the Deity. So it appears to have been 
the case with the Phoenicians and the 
Egyptians. They adored the cross, 
the sacred bull, crocodile, cat, jackal, 
&c. They burnt incense before them, 
as the Catholics do before the cross, 
and the saints, and acknowledge their 
admission into supernatural relations, 
and also invoked their intercession 
with divinity. 




A PUBLIC WEIGHEK. 



% " The centre is occupied by a 
large scale beam, which Anubis has 
erected ; in the one scale is a vase, 
shaped like a heart, and supposed to 



218 ANALOGOUS TO THAT OF THE ROMANIST. 



time when the Egyptian gods became popular at Rome.* 
This reconciles the remark of Herodotus, " the Egyptians 
do not worship heroes," f with the representation on the 



represent the moral qualities of the 
deceased; in the other is the figure 
of the goddess of truth, with the 
ostrich feather on her head, and the 
emblem of life in her hands. Thoth, 
standing by, notes the result of the 
weighing in a tablet or roll of papy- 
rus. Horus, then holding Thoth's 
record in his hand, advances towards 
Osiris, who is supposed to pronounce 
sentence of reward or punishment, 
according to his report. In some of 
the judgment scenes other figures are 
introduced, representing the assessors 
who aided in the judgment. Their 
full number was forty-two, after the 
analogy of the earthly judges, by 
whose sentence was to be determined 
whether the deceased," &c. — Kenrick, 
vol. I., page 342. 

The same author attributes the su- 
perior popularity of Osiris over the 
other gods of Egypt, to the relation 
which he held to the souls of deceased 
persons. This doubtless was the cause 
of his popularity among the Greeks 
and Romans. The processions of the 
images of Christian Rome are but 
slight modifications of those on the 
Nile, from the city of Thebes. So, 
too, the Roman Council of Rites is the 
slightest possible variation from its 
Egyptian original. 

The Papal assessors are not pre- 
sided over by the image of Osiris, but 
there is a substantial agreement in 
all else except names. 

* " Osiris is the only Egyptian god 
who has a detailed mythic history 
similar to legends of the Greek my- 



thology, and doubtless this analogy 
of their own recommended the Osirian 
and Isiac rites to the Greek and Ro- 
man devotees." — Ibid., I., p. 357. 

t Herodotus, L., Book 2, "The 
Egyptians are commonly said to have 
nothing answering to the hero-wor- 
ship of the Greeks. They did not 
believe in those unions of gods with 
mortals which, according to the 
Greeks, gave birth to a race half 
human, half-divine. [Her. II., p. 143.] 
But they paid religious honors to 
eminent persons after their decease, 
not unlike the Greek hero-worship in 
those ages in which the notion of a 
divine descent had long ceased, and 
when Miltiades, Brasidas, and Ara- 
tas had each his heroum. Thothmes 
III., on the tablet of Karnak, pre- 
sents ofi"erings to sixty of his predeces- 
sors, so does Rameses, on the tablet 
of Abydos." — Ibid., I., p. 361 ; same 
on p. 146. 

Even in the matter of assigning 
days to each saint is not original with 
the Catholics, for Herodotus says that 
the Egyptians were the first people 
who assigned each day in the year to 
the god to whom it was appropriated, 
viz. : patron saint. 

" I shall be excused for giving the 
substance of this miraculous appari- 
tion, since it is now an article of be- 
lief of all good Catholics, having been 
proved before the Congregation of 
Rites at Rome to have been a miracu- 
lous appearance of the Mother of God 
upon earth, in the year and at the 
place aforesaid. And the proclama- 



CANONIZATION OF HERCULES. 



219 



tablet of Karnakj where a king appears making offerings 
to sixty of his predecessors.* It is adoration, not worship, 
there represented. 

The solution of this tradition, concerning Osiris Denis 
and his son Hercules, probably is, that the elder of the 
two returning to his Egyptian kingdom, left the affairs 
of the Turdetanians to the jurisdiction of the three sons 
of Gerion, who following the evil course of their parent, 
Hercules was sent into Spain with an army, composed as 
the former one, to restore affairs. Having slain the Gerions, 
either in battle or in personal encounter, this Hercules 
sailed to Italy. After the death of his two captains, His- 
pal and Hispan, he returned again to Spain, and personally 



tion farther informs us that his holi- 
ness, Benedict XIV., -was so fully 
persuaded of the truth of the tradi- 
tion, that he made * cordial devotion 
[adoration] to our Lady of Guada- 
lupe, and conceded the proper mass 
and ritual of devotion. He also made 
mention of it in the lesson of the 
second nocturnal . . . ., declaring 
from the high throne of the Vatican, 
that Mary, most holy, non fecit iali- 
ter omni naiioni.' " — Mexico and its 
Religion, p. 232. 

The saint holds a double relation 
to the Romanist. He is not only 
deemed worthy of the adoration of the 
latter, in common with the emblems, 
but he also acts as intercessor for the 
faithful, with the Deity. This office 
of a saint is borrowed by the Roman- 
ist from the offices of Christ, and 
added to the Egyptian idea of hero 
adoration. But there is even a re- 
semblance to this "in the Egyptian 
ritual of the dead, as noticed by Lep- 
sius, in which the name of Menkera 



occurs as a deceased king, and that 
it is frequently found on scarab^ei, 
which had been used as amulets, and 
which, from the style of their work- 
manship, must have been executed 
long after his death. This clearly 
points to a deification of Menkera, or 
to some cause for which his name was 
held in special reverence." — Ibid. 

* "Another remarkable monument 
of the age of Thothmes III. is the cham- 
ber, on the walls of which he is repre- 
sented making offerings to sixty of 
his predecessors. . . . His name [that 
of Thothmes], appears to have been 
held in high veneration by posterity, 
and is found on a great number of 
scarabcei and amulets." — Ibid., II., p. 
193. 

" The most important additions in 
this portion of the enclosure were 
made by Thothmes III. In one of 
the chambers built by him, he is re- 
presented sacrificing to his ancestors 
the kings of Thebes." — Ibid., I., page 
146. 



220 SUCCESSORS OF HERCULES. 



managed, at least, the military affairs of that country ; 
making Tartesse or Tarshish the seat of his government. 
On his final departure the people of Tartesse manifested 
their gratitude by the erection of a statue and the bestowal 
of a mural crown, and by according to him the title of 
Malcruth — prince of the city. It may have been after 
his canonization in Egypt that the temple was built for 
his adoration at Cadiz, where was deposited that myste- 
rious stone of Hercules — the magnet. The commercial 
city of Tarentum, in Italy, in like manner honored his 
memory with a statue, which significantly held in one 
hand the cup of Apollo, and in the other a key to unlock 
the mystery.* Tyre and Sidon, the associates of Egypt 
in this memorable relief of Tartesse, also awarded similar 
honors. Returning to Egypt, he succeeded to the throne 
on the death of his father, under the title of E-ameses Y.,f 
and had a prosperous and successful reign, as we must 
believe from the laudatory sentence of the judges of the 
court of Osiris. As the orthodox Egyptians did not 
admire foreign exploits, they adored him not as a success- 
ful adventurer, but as a benefactor of his people. " This 
was about the time," says our chronicler, " Jacob and his 
sons went down into Egypt,J or a little before." 

The successor of Hercules, in Italy and in Spain, was 
Hesperus, brother to Atlas, from whom Italy and Spain 

* We have, in the last chapter, J This would make Hercules con- 
fully explained the myth in relation temporaneous with Joseph. But as 
to this cup. we do not know the evidence on which 

f In the preceding notes we have this date rests, we cannot indulge in 

fully explained the grounds of our any speculations on the probable 

opinion that Rameses V. was Her- consequences of two such noble cha- 

cules. racters coming in contact. 



NEPTUNE. 221 



received the name of Hesperid.es. " But Atlas, envious 
of his brother's greatness, came with an army and dis- 
possessed him of the kingdom, forcing him to flee to 
Italic." Atlas,* parting from Spain, left that kingdom to 
Orus,f who, in his turn, was succeeded by his son Siceleus. 
" This man's raign concurrs with the time that God sent 
plagues upon the Egyptians by the hand of Moses and 
Aaron." Siceleus being dead, his son Lusus held the 
sceptre of Spain. " After him Vius, or Siculus his son, 
reigned, whome they call Neptune,^ for that he entertained 
many ships and galleys at sea. He passed also into Italic 
and Sicilie as his predecessors had done, to succor the 
Spaniards, who were seated in those regions, against whome 
the Cyclops and others of the country renewed the warr. 
After him many strangers thrust into Spain upon divers 
occasions, but for one only cause, which was for spoile, 
being easie to take by reason of the simplicitie of the 
Spanish people." 

It is probable that none of those above named were in 
reality kings of Spain, but simply leaders of Libyan mer- 
cenaries, hired by the opulent merchant cities of that 
country. At one time fighting the battles of Spaniards, 
at another mutinying and sacking, or attempting to sack, 
the cities that had given them employment. Their rela- 
tion to these " free towns" being substantially the same 
that it was to Carthage in after centuries. These hired 

* Here is another of the leaders of J " They [the Greeks] are indebted 

the Libyans of Mauritania, that after- to Africa for this god [Neptune], 

wards Tvas worshipped as a divinity. where he has been long known and 

t This would seem to imply that honored." — Herodotus, II., sec. 1. 
Horu^, the Egyptian god of the hours, 
was of Libyan origin. 



222 TYRIANS MIGRATE TO TARTESSE. 



" sons of Sem," * as our chronicler calls them, having in 
all ages of antiquity been noted as much for their turbu- 
lence as for their courage. Neptune, whom they afterwards 
deified, appears to have been one of their distinguished 
captains. In command of the Tartessian armies and war 
galleys, he doubtless overran Italy, Sardinia, and Sicily; 
performing such acts of heroism both on sea and land as 
to merit a place among the gods in the estimation of his 
contemporaries. From Libya his fame and his worship 
travelled to Greece, as we have seen, while in the imagi- 
native tales of mariners he still holds the undisputed 
dominion of the ocean. 

In the mean time an African named Tefta seized upon 
Gadir [Cadiz], and of all the main land thereabouts, call- 
ing himself king of Spain. After him came his son 
Remus. " To Remus they make his son Palatius to suc- 

* The most popular moonshine of of Japhet, it has likewise perished, so 
the day is the common notion that the far as we can trace it, excepting the 
population of the Eastern Continent two fragments we have often alluded 
was divided thus : — Europe was peo- to — the Basques and some add their 
pled by the descendants of Japhet, associate Celts — Celt-Iberians. The 
Asia by the children of Shem, and modern notion of the ethnologists 
Africa by the children of Ham. however is, that the Celts even are of 
Among all ancient geographers Egypt the new migration — Indo-Europeans. 
is reckoned as part of Asia, at least See Pritchard. 
as far as the Nile. Assyria, Pales- All the families and races of men 
tine, and Egypt we know were at that are now existing upon the earth, 
first all peopled by descendants of so far as we can trace them, are de- 
Ham. Beyond this we know of no rivable from Shem. The Libyans are 
country that was certainly peopled clearly so, notwithstanding the at- 
by descendants of this putative father tempts that have been made to prove 
of the black races of Africa. that they were Gauls, or that they were 

All the races of men that we can the descendants of Phut, viz.. Ham. 

positively trace to Ham have certainly Thus Josephus pretends : " Phut was 

perished, and the reasonable infer- the conductor of Libya. It is beyond 

ence is, that the family of Ham has the river in the region of Mauritania." 
become extinct. So with the family 



GRECIAN HERCULES AT TARTESSE. 223 



ceed." Palatius being dead, " the Tjrians of Phoenicia, 
who had now learned the way to Spain, came with their 
king [Ery three], and a good store of ships, who, giving 
them [the Spaniards] to understand that he had been 
commanded by an oracle to come and build a temple to 
Hercules, Libique, in the island of Tartesse, that is Calls 
[Cadiz], were not only received, but Ery three was also 
chosen king of that part of Spain, and built a stately 
temple in the island to Hercules."* Then follows the 
story of the Grecian Hercules, of whom it is well to 
remark what the reader has, perhaps, already anticipated 
— that the pure and magnanimous character here given to 
him would hardly be popular with the imaginative and 
unscrupulous Greeks. Neither would his peculiar fidora- 
tion be suitable to their taste. Hence the necessity for a 
Grecian Hercules with traditions modified so as to reflect 
their peculiarities, and bring him in conformity with their 
ideas of a demigod. 

" This Hercules [the Grecian] was but an insolent fel- 
low, yet well beloved of the Grecian princes, by reason 
of his boldness and his strength of bodie, fit to rob and 
steal, whereunto the nobilitie of that age was commonly 
addicted. The wealth of Spaine, which was so much 
spoken of in Greece and Asia, made him effect [under- 
take] this voyage after the first Trogan war against 
Leomedon. Having then gathered together all the pyrates 
and thieves he could, as well in Europe as in Asia,"f he 
visits Italy and Sardinia, and finally arrives at Cadiz, and 
there in his temple offers sacrifices to Hercules the Great. 

* Grimsha-vt, p. 8 (M.) t Ed. Grimsha-t, p. 9 (F.) 



224 UNPOETIC PICTURE OF HERCULES. 



Then follows an account of his contest with the Titans, 
whom our chronicler supposes to have been no other than 
the Curetes. He enlarged the town of Erythree, and 
left many Tyrians and Sidonians there who had followed 
him. " These people changed the name to Gadir, which, 
in the Phoenician tongue, signifies terme or limit [ultima 
thule]."* 

Those who have feasted on the sublime tragedy of Euri- 
pides, or of Seneca — the Medea — will hardly enjoy the 
prosaic reflections of our quaint author when he turns the 
heroic verses of ApoUonius Rhodius into the following 
unmitigated prose : — " Of this Hercules the poets have 
fained all that is written of the conquests, prowess, and 
travels of many other Hercules more ancient and better 
men than he. He was a Grecian, but not of Greece itself, 
but of that part of Italic which they call the Great Greece 
and of Tarentum, bred up at Beoce,f nurished in theft, 
fornication, and execrable murthers, a companion and 
counsellor to Jason in the voyage to Colchis, J at the spoile 
of the treasure of ^Erete, and the rape [carrying off] of 
his daughter Medea, the author and executioner of the 
ruin of Leomedon, king of Troy." 

As Hercules is the prominent character of profane 
antiquity, both in history, fable, and song, we must be 

* There has been so much learned lantis, and of the continent beyond 

nonsense expended in conjectures the ocean. 

about the location of this ultima thule, f Boeotia, the reader will recollect, 

that it is a pity to spoil it all, by sug- contains the Phoenician colony of 

gesting that Seneca, when he uttered Thebes. 

the memorable prophecy contained J In a former chapter we took oc- 

in his Medea, was familiar with the casion to suggest that the Argonautica 

Timeus and Crition of Plato, and with was a piratical expedition, to plunder 

his description of the Island of At- the city of Colchis. 



TRUE CHARACTER OF HERCULES. 225 



pardoned for devoting so much space to him, and to the 
benefactions he is believed to have conferred on divers 
conflicting races and families of mankind. Flourishing 
at a time when Paganism was weaving itself into a dege- 
nerate civilization, he permitted no emblem or image to 
be introduced into his temple at Tartesse, and, instead of 
a Pagan ritual, established there one strikingly similar to 
that of the Mosaic. And this, even after Paganism had 
become predominant, was retained in that peculiar form 
at Tyre and Cadiz. In Tartesse and Tyre, as already 
noticed, he was honored with a statue and a mural 
crown, and title of Malcrath — prince of the city. The 
commercial city of Tarentum in Italy likewise gave him 
a statue, that significantly held in one hand a key, and in 
the other the cup of Apollo.* In Greece he was honored 
as the author of the monthly divisions of the year.-|- In 
his own kingdom, Egypt, the twenty-four hours are repre- 
sented on the walls and ceiling of his tomb, while, from 

* " The statue of Hercules at Ta- ris" — the needle magnetized. " Her- 

rentum, enumerated by Pliny in his cules-Apollo" — the statue of Hercules 

list of Colossi, had a key in one hand holding the cup of Apollo — the key 

and a cup in the other. On the coins to this mystery, 

of Crotona Hercules bore a cup in his It may here be added that the 

hand." — Pillars of Hercules, vol. I., batylis was probably not brought 

page 152. from the cabose, or shrine, until the 

The reader will recollect that in a ship was about passing the line of 

former chapter we quoted from an the entrance of the ocean, where, with 

Arab author of the thirteenth cen- the mysterious rites now transferred 

tury, a description of the antique to the equatorial line, the compass 

compass, which fully explains the was brought forth, 

purport of those mystical expressions f The reader will recollect the quo- 

of antiquity — " The stone of Hercu- tation in the last chapter from Scho- 

les" — the magnet stone. " The cup liast on Hesiod, stating that the twelve 

of Apollo" — the cup in which the labors of Hercules were the twelve 

needle floated. " The arrow of Aba- months of the year. 
15 



226 YIELD OF SPANISH SILVER xMINES. 



an inscription of the Roman era, we learn that he was the 
Memnon.* In the fanciful creations of Homer, the Mem- 
non appears also as the handsome son of Aurora.f Well 
worthy was such a hero of a statue so contrived, that at 
the rising of ^ very sun it gave forth each day harmonious 
sounds. His history, like most of his statues, is in part 
broken and defaced, but so exceedingly attractive is the 
portion remaining, that the more we look upon that the 
more cause have we to regret the missing parts. Broken 
and defaced as it is, it still gives forth a sweet melody 
at the rising of every inspiration for noble achievements. 
Well might Abdasor and Asseramor J invoke, on a marble 
candelabrum, his blessing on their uncertain voyage, and 
the brothers, Dionysius and Serapion, add to it the title 
of Archegetes — the great pilot. 

Here follows our author's version of the famous disco- 
very of silver by the Pyrenean shepherds, b. c. 880 years. 
This is one of the remarkable events of antiquity, and 
fully accounts for the importance of Spain in early times. 
It was the California of the ancients, from whence they 
derived their supply of precious metals, while Tartesse 
or Cadiz was its San Francisco,§ where congregated the 
adventurers of all nations to reap the profits of mining 

* " The tomb which the inscription his blessing attend them on their un- 

of the Roman times calls that of Mem- certain voyage," is inscribed on the 

non, is really that of Rameses V., shaft of a marble candelabrum, pre- 

Meiamun, or his successor, as Cham- served at Malta. Under which is 

pollion asserts." — Kenrick, I., p. 142. inscribed in Greek, Dionysius and 

f Odessea, ^ 188, X 521. Serapion, sons of Serapion, Tyrians, 

X " Abdassar and Asseremor, sons to Hercules Archegetes. 
of Asseremor, son of Abdassar, per- § " Silver spread into plates is 

form this vow to our Lord Melcrat, brought from Tarshish, and gold from 

the tutelary divinity of Tyre. May Ophir." Jer. x. 9. 



YIELD OF SPANISH SILVER MINES. 



227 



speculations,* or in other ways possess themselves of some 
portion of its abounding wealth. f The fact, that the 
whole narrative of this discovery has been regarded as 
fabulous, for thousands of years, only demonstrates that 
such discoveries are exceedingly rare, and not within the 
experience of the mass of men, yet it probably did not 



* That the reader may see that 
these representations of the abun- 
dance of silver produced anciently in 
Spain are not beyond credibility, we 
subjoin some notices of the abundance 
of silver on our ovrn frontier, and in 
the region of Arazonia. 

" We have the following record in 
evidence of the masses of silver ex- 
tracted at Arazuma. Don Domingo 
Asmendi paid duties on a piece of 
virgin silver which weighed 275 lbs. 
The king's attorney [Jiscal] brought 
suit for the duties on several other 
pieces, which together weighed 4033 
lbs. Also for the recovery, as a curi- 
osity, and therefore the property of 
the king, of a certain piece of silver 
of the weight of 2700 lbs. This is 
probably the largest piece of pure 
silver ever found in the world." — 
Ward's Mexico, vol. II., p. 278. 

f " The mining laborers have their 
romances, which are as wild as the 
yarns of the sailor, and have for their 
almost universal theme the miracu- 
lous acquisition and loss of a fortune. 
The hero possesses princely wealth 
to-day, though yesterday he was suf- 
fering for food, and to-morrow he will 
be again bereft of all by the fickle 
turns that Fortune makes in the wheel 
of destiny. The wildest of our ro- 
mances never come up to many inci- 
dents that have occurred in their own 



mine; and when they attempt fiction, 
it is on the pattern of the Arabian 
Nights' Entertainments. I do verily 
believe that all that class of Arabian 
tales are but the reproduction of the 
romances from the Oriental gold-wash- 
ings. 

" The most important mines in the 
state of San Luis Potosi are those 
near Cuatorce, in which more won- 
derful things have occurred than in 
the wildest of the 'romances.' The 
story of Padre Flores is a familiar 
one, but will bear repeating. 

" The padre, being tired of the idle 
life of a pauper priest, bought, for a 
small sum, the claim of some still 
more needy adventurer. After fol- 
lowing his small vein a little way, he 
came to a small cavern containing the 
ore in a state of decomposition. This, 
in California, would be called a ' rot- 
ten vein.' With all the difficulties to 
be encountered in obtaining a fair 
value for mineral in a crude state, 
the poor priest realized from his ad- 
venture over $3,000,000, which was 
considered a very fair fortune for an 
unmitred ecclesiastic." — Mexico and 
its Religion, page 375. 

" The ores of the Pastiano mine, 
near the Carmen, were so rich that 
the lode was worked by bars, with a 
point at one end and a chisel at the 
other, for cutting out the silver. The 



228 



TRADITIONAL ACCOUNT. 



surpass the Spanish silver discoveries in Potosi and in 
Sonera* since his folios were written. 

Those of our readers who are familiar with a silver- 
producing region can, without difficulty, detect the evi- 
dences of truth in the accounts that have reached us, and 
can easily calculate the amount of exaggeration in the 
traditions. They know that, when the " lodes crop out," 



owner of the Pastiano used to bring 
the ores from the mine with flags fly- 
ing, and the mules adorned with 
cloths of all colors. The same man 
received a reproof from the Bishop 
of Durango when he visited Batopilos, 
for placing bars of silver from the 
door of his house to the great hall 
Ysala\ for the bishop to walk upon." 
— ^Ward, vol. II., page 578. 

" In the case of the famous mine 
of the priest Flores at Cuatorce, which 
he blasphemously named ' the Purse 
of God the Father,' where there are 
marks of divers attempts being made 
to undermine them, though without 
success. But the case is a different 
one when the bonanza is upon a high 
ridge, and it can be undermined by 
drifting in from a lower level. Then 
commences a lively contest to deter- 
mine who can dig the fastest, and 
make the most rapid progress in this 
contest of mining and undermining. 

" The Marquis de los Rayas owes 
his title and his princely fortune of 
$11,000,000 to a successful contest of 
this character. The Santa Amita was 
in bonanza, yielding an ore so preg- 
nant with gold that the crude mass 
often sold for its weight in silver." — 
Mexico, page 384. 

* " In Sonora, silver is most com- 



monly extracted from the ore by the 
simple process of fusion. But in the 
district of Batopilos, it is, or rather 
was, found pure. If we should adopt 
the theory that veins of ore extend 
through the entire length of Mexico, 
then I should say that they ' crop out' 
in Sonora. 

" The ' Good Success Mine' [Bueno 
Suceso] was discovered by an In- 
dian, who swam across the river after 
a great flood. On arriving at the 
other side, he found the crest of an 
immense lode laid bare by the force 
of the water. The greater part of 
this was pure massive silver, spark- 
ling in the rays of the sun. The 
whole town of Batopilos went to gaze 
at the extraordinary sight as soon as 
the river was fordable. This Indian 
extracted great wealth from his mine, 
but, on coming to the depth of three 
Spanish yards [varas], the abundance 
of water obliged him to abandon it, 
and no attempts have since been made 
to resume the working. When the 
silver is not found in solid masses, 
which requires to be cut with the 
chisel, it is generally finely sprinkled 
through the lode, and often serves to 
nail together the particles of stone 
through which it is disseminated." — 
Ward, vol. II., p. 578. 



TRADITIONAL ACCOUNT. 



229 



they often assume an appearance as of molten silver, 
suddenly cooled, and it is not wonderful that people 
ignorant of the nature of mineralogical deposits should 
suppose these to have been produced by the burning of 
the mountain forests. "About 880 years B.C.," says the 
chronicler, " was the memorable fire in the Pyrenee Moun- 
tains, and it continued many days, the veins of the earth 
were so moved with this violent heat,* as the silver melt- 
ing ran down by streams : whereof jDyrates and strangers, 
which did traffique there, being advertised, they came run- 
ning to this booty. The Phoenicians, among others, under 
a kind of traffique, and with the exchange of certain trifles 
of small value, loaded their ships above once, being con- 
ducted as some write by Sicbee [AcerbasJ husband to 



* We have to repeat here a former 
note : — 

" The mines upon the mountains 
of Cuatorce are said to have been dis- 
covered in 1778 by a negro fiddler, 
who, being compelled to camp out on 
his way home from a dance, built a 
fire upon what proved to be an outcrop 
of a vein, and, in consequence, found 
in the morning, among the embers, a 
piece of virgin silver. It is a doubtful 
question among those who are anxious 
about trifles whether the name Potosi 
given to this mine, owes its origin to 
the similarity between the mode of its 
discovery to that of the celebrated 
mines of that name in South America, 
or to the vast amount of silver at one 
time taken from it." — Ward, vol. II., 
page 578. 

" The next mine of interest in our 
progress northward is the Morelos, 



' which was discovered in 1826 by two 
brothers named Aranco. These two 
Indian peons were so poor that, the 
night before their great discovery, the 
keeper of the store had refused to 
credit one of them for a little corn for 
his tortillas. They extracted from 
their claim |270,000 ; yet, in Decem- 
ber, 1826, they were still living in a 
wretched hovel, close to the source of 
their wealth, bareheaded and bare- 
legged, with upwards of $200,000 in 
silver locked up in their hut. But 
never was the utter worthlessness of 
the metal, as such, so clearly demon- 
strated as in the case of the Arancos, 
whose only pleasure consisted in con- 
templating their hoards, and occa- 
sionally throwing away a portion of 
the richest ore to be scrambled for by 
their former companions, the work- 
men.' " — Ibid. 



230 RISE OF CARTHAGE. 



Eliza Dido ;* yea in so great abundance as they made the 
anchors of their ships of silver."f 

The rise of the Carthaginian commonwealth, it seems^ 
grew out of these successful mining adventures, or rather 
from quarrels about the disposition of the profits. Acerbas 
became too rich for a subject,^ and in consequence his 
brother-in-law King Pigmaleon of Tyre, slew him 
"through envie and covetousness," and also undertook 
himself to lead an expedition to Spain. His enterprise 
was disastrous. He having died at sea the expedition 
was abandoned, and his companions found their way to 
Cadiz, which was a material addition to the population 
of that town, "so as in the end it became a mighty 
commonwealth." But Dido fled in the mean time, with 
her husband's wealth, to Carthage, a town which had 
previously been founded by one Carchedon, a Tyrian. 
Dido greatly enlarged the city, " which did increase daily 
both in people and in wealth," which w^as about one 



* "The sister of the king [Pyg- womaiily devoi ion were alike conspicu- 

malion] was the renowned princess ous, and consequently she was worthy 

known in poetry and general history of being allied to a prince possessing 

as Dido, but whose name while yet the exalted virtue and character of 

in Tyre was Eliza, or Elizabeth — Acerbas." — Jot^Es's Ancient Am., Tpage 

which name, translated from the ori- 258. 

ginal language, means an oath. It f This exaggeration should, by 

is therefore probable that the attach- no means, destroy the credibility of 

ment and devotion of the princess for the general outlines of the narrative. 

Acerbas must have commenced in her J The same difiBculty occurred in 

earliest days. There was no princess Peru, where the younger Pizarro, 

of antiquity endowed with more en- found in the rich mine of Potosi, the 

larged attributes of the mind than means to support his insurrection, 

the Tyrian Elizabeth. Her resolu- He was too rich to be a subject, 
tion, active courage, intellect, and 



CARTHAGINIANS INYITED TO SPAIN. 231 



hundred and thirty-five years before the foundmg of 
Kome.* 

It was not until about 562 b. c. that Carthage began 
to take a leading part in the internal affairs of Spain, 
being invited there by the people of Cadiz, who had 
become involved with all the surrounding states. These 
G aditanians " being rich merchants and seeking to make 
their profit of all things, they took away men from the 
neighbor towns and villages, and carried them to sell as 
slaves in strange countries. These inhuman practices 
did in the end stir up the other people of Spain against 
the Gaditanes, who, finding themselves not strong enough 
to oppose so many enemies, resolved to call in the Cartha- 
ginians, who in the end became masters of Spain, until 
the Romans stayed them," as says the old chronicler; 
from whom for the present we must now part company. 

The reader is doubtless sufficiently familiar with the 
progress of the Carthaginian arms in Spain to justify us 
in passing over the detail of battles, massacres, and 
plunder, which preceded the subjugation of that country. 
It is one of cities ruined, and provinces devastated, and 
the infliction of untold misery upon an unoffending popu- 
lation. But scarcely was the object of all this slaughter 
and pillage accomplished, when that peninsula passed 
under the dominion of new masters — the Romans. In 
the course of centuries of provincial existence, it became 
completely Romanized in language, civilization, and 



* Grimshaw, page 12 (H.)— The poetic license when he makes ^neas 
reader must of course understand a contemporary of Dido, 
that Virgil probably indulges in a 



232 EEASONS FOR INVITING THE MOSLEMS. 



religion. But when its imperial mistress, in the lowest 
stage of her degeneracy, gave paganism a Christian baptism, 
then Spain became a pasture-ground, where priest and 
prelate watched their flocks, not for the fleece alone, but 
often for the carcass likewise — a country in which priests 
were councillors and prelates dictated in secular afiairs. 
In her spiritual courts they plundered the estates of the 
faithful, while they placed their seven sacraments as so 
many toll gates upon the road to Paradise, to extort still 
more. The worms that feasted on the live flesh of a 
dying king,* not inaptly personify the relation of its 
priests to the Spaniards of the imperial era. 

A nation so disordered could offer no adequate 
resistance to the Vandals or the Suevi, and as the only 
remedy, they invited the Goths, though Arians, from 
their transpyrenean kingdom to Spain. These barbarians 
seem to have dealt faithfully with their Roman allies, as 
they continued to live under a separate government two 
hundred and four years; for it was not until within 
ninety-four years of the advent of the Saracens, that all 
Spain sank under the Gothic dominion. One hundred and 
twenty-four years before that event King Ricardo, the 
Goth, declared himself a Catholic, and compelled his people 
to adopt the dogmas of that church. At a council held 
by him at Toledo it was decreed, that "whoso cometh 
__4into the communion shall say after the priest the w^ords 

* " An infinite number of insects could make a wretched anatomie of 

[piojos), breeding of that corrupt his body as well as of the meanest of 

matter, and dispersing themselves his subjects." — Ed. Grimshaw, page 

over his [Philip II.'s] whole bodie, 1284 (sec. I.) 
gave him to understand that nature 



REASONS FOR INVITING THE MOSLEMS. 233 



of the [so-called] Apostles' creed."* So that, by a. shallow 
artifice, the Arians were deprived of their political rights. 
Bj the same council, Jews, then forming a large propor- 
tion of the population, were excluded also from all 
" political employment." The secularized estates of the 
clergy in the hands of bona fide proprietors were re- 
assumed by this unconscionable priesthood. Thus the 
Gothic kingdom of SjDain, though conducting successfully 
an aggressive war in Africa,f was filled with discontent at 
home. The intolerable burdens imposed upon it by its 
own religious guides, compelled a Christian nation to seek 
relief under the dominion of the Moslem. A mere hand- 
ful of Saracens, thus aided, not only vanquished an army 
tenfold their number in the field, but, in a single month^ 
subjugated the entire peninsula. Its re-conquest required 
seven hundred years of continuous war, and the assistance 
of all Christendom, to eflect it.;j; 

* Grimshaw, page 143 (sec. F.) draw all his adherents with him — 
t " How could there be a strug- the Archbishop of Seville could quit 
gle in an open country by 12,000 the camp with all his followers — a 
against 100,000, where arms and fact which has no parallel — and join 
courage were equal — where both were the invading Mussulraen. There ex- 
warlike? The Goths were engaged isted these links between the two 
m continual warfare between them- people not to be found in the romances 
selves ; they were making incursions of the Spanish writers, or in the 
into France ; they were at the very phrases of Gibbon. Thus the enter- 
time masters, by recent triumphs, of prise ceases to be a fable, and regains 
the sea, and possessors until that very its just station as one of the most 
year, of strong places in Africa, hardy and successful of human 
whence they were carrying on ag- achievements." — Pillars of Hercules, 
gressive war against the Moors ! We vol. I., page 94. 
have therefore to look for some other % "Read the annals of Spain; 
cause than the effeminacy of the one, you will find that Don Alphonso I., 
and the valor of the other. Count of Castile (which took Toledo from 
Julian could put the Moors in posses- the Moors, and united it to Castile), 
sion of Ceuta, and in joining them was virtuously assisted by great troops 



234 



THE SARACENS. 



We have now reached the dawn of modern civiHzation 
— the advent of the Saracens. As a nation they have 
passed away ;* but, though their existence be terminated, 
their literature remains, the common property of all 
Europe. It is easy to understand, that, a horde of Arabian 
shepherds, filled with courage and fanaticism, might 
accomplish the military exploits history accredits to their 
arms. But, to believe them the authors of a new civiliza- 
tion, so perfect, so elegant, so enduring, as to survive 
its originators, is even harder, than to receive as unvar- 
nished truth, one of their sweet and captivating poems. f 
There is evidence that large portions of our modern 
literature, and our architecture, whether Gothic,J Lom- 



of French. The same Spanish histo- 
ries make mention that, at the siege 
of Saragossa, in the year 1118, Don 
Alphonso VII. had in his armie Wil- 
liam of Poitiers, Ratron of Perche, 
with them of Cominges, and Bigorre, 
the Viscount of Lanedan, the Bishop 
of Lescar, and many other Frencli 
noblemen and knights . . . their own 
writers doe witness that in the army 
of King Don Alphonso IV., of Cas- 
tile, there were 100,000 strangers, 
and most French [in the battle of 
Muradal], and in like manner at the 
battle of Salado, at the siege of Al- 
gezires, and such like actions." — 
Argument of the French Ambassadors 
at the Council of Trent, copied in 
Grimshaw, page 1103 (F.) 

* We are fully aware that the 
tillers or cultivators of the soil, in 
Syria and Egypt, are for the most 
part of pure Arabic blood. But that 
elegant, industrious, and polished 



people we understand by the word 
Saracen, have disappeared, the vic- 
tims of that inexorable natural law 
that dooms to extermination the in- 
termixtures of repugnant races, 
though they may have embraced the 
same religion. 

t We should have said romances, 
if the expression would not be a 
contradiction : for while the name is 
clearly of Provencal origin, the thing 
itself is as clearly Moorish. 

X The most surprising feature of 
Europe of the middle ages, is the 
architectural elegance of the churches, 
and other public edifices. The chaste 
and severe architectural style of these 
buildings is in striking contrast with 
the tawdry, toy-shop idolatry of the 
worship and childish ornaments that 
betray their almost savage mental 
condition. 

The bitter hate systematically in- 
culcated by the priesthood of Europe, 



THE SARACENS. 



235 



bard,* Norman,f or SaxonJ so called, — and most of our 



is the cause of covering up, under 
flimsy disguises, the important fact 
that these edifices were built by Arab 
architects, while the imagery was the 
product of their own childish efforts. 

Painting and statuary were abhor- 
rent to the Islaim faith, and of course 
would not be cultivated by Arabs, 
and hence the necessity of looking to 
other sources for a supply of images 
and pictures for Christian adoration ! 

" The Gothic. — That the grandest 
styles [of architecture] should be 
known by the name of the rudest 
people — that architecture should be 
called after dwellers in tents and 
tenants of huts — that the Goths should 
have ceased to exist before the Gothic 
was invented, is, indeed, a phenome- 
non. . . . Had it been known that 
ecclesiastical architecture came from 
a Mussulman source, surely we should 
not have heard of ' the Gothic spring- 
ing from the Bible,' and like foolish 
speeches." — Pillars of Hercules, vol. 
II., pp. 265, 266. 

"It is no novel idea that northern 
architecture was derived from the 
Saracens, but our supposed inter- 
course with that people is confined to 
the crusade, which coinciding indeed 
with, or shortly preceding the Gothic 
style, &c. . . . But the intercourse 
of Northern Europe with the Sara- 
cens preceded the crusades by four or 
five centuries, and the intercourse of 
England with Africa preceded Islam- 
ism. The first architectural move- 
ment in England, in the age of St. 
Winifred, by half a century the erec- 
tion of the mosque of Omar at Jeru- 
salem, one of the noblest monuments 
in the world." — Ibid., vol. II., page 
269. 

* The Lombard style arose in 



the south of Italy, after these people 
had come in contact with the Sara- 
cens, and learned their arts, and em- 
ployed their artists." — Ibid. 

f The Norman. — The second ar- 
chitectural age in England was that 
of the Normans ; it was preceded by 
the conquest of Calabria and Sicily, 
inhabited by the Saracens, who ex- 
celled, as the ruins left behind them 
attest, in the very highest branches 
of this art. 

" The oldest of the specimens [of 
Norman] we have in Sicily, is the 
Capella Palatin, built soon after the 
conquest of that island by Roger. . . . 
There is a wide band running round 
the apse in Arabic characters. The 
inscription is a long string of honor- 
ary epithets applied to Roger. In 
the cathedral of Cefula there is a per- 
fect Norman arch, levelled or cham- 
fered, and exactly the same as we see 
them in the north of Europe. This 
edifice bears a Latin inscription, at- 
tributing to a Saracen the honor of 
the construction." — Ibid., vol. II., page 
273. 

" These Normans were in continued 
intercourse with their native country 
on the British Channel. Passing 
constantly through France, they soon 
afterwards conquered England. It 
was this people who gave the great 
impulse to architecture in the eleventh 
century, in England and France, and 
thus arose the style known by their 
name ; not merely raising those build- 
ings by the wealth they possessed in 
Normandy, or acquired in England, 
but even from the contributions made 
from the booty of Calabria and the 
spoils of Sicily." — Ibid., vol. II., page 
272. 
X " Saxon. — The most common 



236 



DECLINE OF ARIANISM. 



modern improvements and inventions,* even the first hints 
of our Protestantism, are of Saracenic origin. Though 
pohtical causes there operating, preserved the Roman 
superstition unchanged until a late period, and natural 
causes have worn away the vestiges of Saracenic descent, 
yet the imprint of the Arabian is everywhere still visible, 
in Spain. 

As Christians we cannot sympathize with the Arian 
heresy, but we do most sincerely with the inhabitants of 
the Eastern and Western, the Greek and Latin empires, 
who, to escape the intolerable burden of priestly despotism, 
were led to seek refuge in it, and deny the divinity of 
the Son of God. The relief however was only temporary. 
Arianism having a negative, rather than a positive 
existence, died with the suppression of those priestly 
abuses upon which it fed.f It rather declined than was 



and primitive style of Moorish arch- 
ing is the flat wall cut into the semi- 
circle, supported without entablature 
on wall or column. That is exactly 
the Saxon ; it was only known to 
them after they had crossed the seas. 
. . . The Saxon race came in contact 
with the Saracens in the earliest 
times of Islaim by pilgrimages to 
the Holy Land — they served in the 
armies of the Greek emperors. 

" From the time of Constantino an 
uninterrupted connection of the Arabs 
and the Northmen, during four cen- 
turies, is attested by 20,000 Saracenic 
coins in the cabinet of Stockholm, 
found in Gothland, and along the 
eastern coast of Sweden." — Ibid., 
page 270. 

* " The perusal of the catalogue 
of the Escurial, suggested to M. 
Villemain, the remark that most of 



the modern discoveries of which the 
date and the name of the inventor 
are set down as certain, were no more 
than inventions of the Arabs, which 
he had appropriated. Such in this 
case was the fact. Amalphi, the 
earliest of European commercial 
states, arose under the Greeks and 
Saracens. To the latter people it 
owed the lead it took in instruction 
and navigation. Centuries and gene- 
rations before Flavio de Gioja was 
born, the needle was known at Amal- 
phi." — Pillars of Hercules, vol. I., 
page 139. 

t The excessive hatred always ex- 
hibited towards the Arians, is mainly 
owing to their exposure of orthodox 
abuses ; being a sort of philosophical 
Unitarians, they exhibited an exact 
contrast to the sensuous worship of 
the orthodox. 



CIVILIZATION OF THE SARACENS. 237 



crushed by the secular power. So long, however, as it 
prevailed the people enjoyed a respite ; but, when its 
power was gone, priests and prelates resumed their former 
practices, with appetite whetted by long abstinence. The 
cry of the suffering nations once more rose to heaven, 
until Providence sent them a deliverer in the person of 
the Arabian impostor ; to that country we must now turn 
to examine this new element in Spanish history. 

Persecution had driven multitudes of Jews and Arians 
to take refuge in Arabia. Among its wild and inhospita- 
ble fastnesses they gathered strength, while nursing an 
inexorable hate against the orthodox superstition, baptized 
with the name of Christianity, and this, not for forty 
years only, but for centuries. Thus a peculiar civilization 
grew up on the borders of the Eastern Empire, the anti- 
pode of Greek and Latin Catholicism, and found a read}^ 
sympathy in the crude theism of the wanderers of the 
desert. Who has not wondered at the sudden transforma- 
tion of Arabian nomades to the extraordinary civilization 
of the Caliphat? Yet it was not so instantaneous as 
superficial observers represent. It required, on the 
contrary, centuries for its formation out of a wreck of 
disjointed religions, whose zealots were its material.* As 
it reached maturity side by side of a nominally Christian 



* " Their [the Arabs'] country had licacies of the Greeks and Persians, 

been peopled at the expense of the They were inured to hardships of all 

Grecian Empire, -vrhence the vio- kinds, and consequently much better 

lent proceedings of the different reli- fitted than their effeminate neighbors 

gious sectaries forced many to take to endure the fatigues of war, as the 

refuge in Arabia. The Arabs were event very fully verified." — Enclopce- 

not only a populous nation, but un- dia Brit. II., page 152. 
acquainted with the luxuries and de- 



238 TIME AND PLACE OF MAHOMET'S BIRTH. 



empire, between them there necessarily arose a state of 
chronic border war; for the new order could not fail to 
assume a character of antagonism to its neighbor's idol- 
atrous worship, while, at the same time, that worship 
offered a pretext to justify continued forays within its 
borders. 

Among such a people was Mahomet born about the 
year 565, of our era,* at the little town of Itarip near 
Mecca. He was duly instructed in the Arian heresy by 
the monk Sergius,*|- according to received authorities. To 
this negative doctrine, when he had reached the age of 
forty years, he added a positive character, in his own 
pretended revelations. To the mine already prepared for 
an explosion, this last addition proved the kindling match. 
His success was so rapid, as to surpass the most extrava- 
gant anticipations. For his armies, when they broke into 
the empire, had but to contend with its taskmasters. The 
people gladly submitted to the rule of an enemy, who 
placed the chance of attaining to the seventh Heaven in 
the inviolability with which he kept his engagements, 
the exactness wdth which he administered justice, and the 
mercy he showed to the defenceless. J 



* Mj old chronicler, so good on ness and lenity. Consult with your 
the traditional era, differs so widely officers on all pressing occasions, and 
from the popular date fixed on for encourage them to face the enemy 
the birth of Mahomet, that I have with bravery and resolution. If you 
preferred to, follow the Encyclop. Bri- shall happen to be victorious, destroy 
tannica. The uq^ American Encyclop. neither old people, women, nor child- 
fixes this event at 550, while Grim- ren. Cut down no palm-trees, nor 
shaw assigned so late a date as 591. burn any fields of corn. Spare all 
t Grimshaw, page 161. fruit-trees, and slay no cattle but 
X " Take care, Yezid Ebn Abu such as you shall take for your own 
Sofian, to treat your men with tender- use. Adhere always inviolably to 



CAUSE OF THE SUCCESS OF THE SARACENS. 239 



Such was the condition of the Eastern Empire, and the 
barbaric kingdoms that had estabhshed themselves upon 
the ruins of its western rival, when the Saracens swept 
over Asia Minor, Egypt, and northern Africa, as a fire 
driven by a fierce wind through the dry and withered grass 
of autumn. Its track has the appearance of devastation 
over a broad expanse, but it is in appearance only ; for 
the blackened earth gives forth a richer verdure in 
consequence on the succeeding spring. Such a path was 
that of the " commanders of the faithful." The load of 
effete superstitions and idolatries that had hitherto crushed 
Christian nations to the earth, were swept away in their 
fiery purification, while the people sprang into renewed 
life under the influence of the doctrines they diffused. 
Among the inhabitants of the Christian states a sense of 
mutual confidence arose; for the first time in many 
generations it was taught publicly, and without the fear 
of punishment, that truth, honesty, and fair dealing in 
this life, were a more necessary qualification for that to 
come, than the absolution of a priest, or the holy oil of the 
last sacrament. To those Christians and Jews, who did 
not embrace this novel doctrine, toleration was so fully 
conceded, as to cause others to desire the dominion of the 
Saracen also, and to sigh for that prosperity, which their 
co-religionists enjoyed under Moslem rule. 

your engagements, and put none of [viz., persons in priests' orders], 

the religious persons you shall meet cleave their skulls, and give them no 

with in monasteries to the sword, quarter, except they embrace Islaem, 

Offer no violence to the places they or pay tribute." — Instructions of Ahu 

serve God in. Beer, tlie first caliph, to Sofian, on his 

" As for those members of the syna- setting out to invade Si/ria. — Encyclop. 

gogue of Satan, who shave their crown Brit., page 161. 



240 TARIK INVADES SPAIN. 



^' The straw that breaks the camel's back," had already 
fallen upon the shoulders of the suffering people of Spain. 
If Count Julian was not formally delegated by them, he 
did not the less represent the national feeling when he 
invited Mousa, " the leader of the faithful," to rescue them 
from their spiritual oppressors. The devout Moslem 
listened to the tale of sufferings brought him by the 
unbelievers, and his spirit moved within him. " God is 
great !" is all that is reported to have escaped his lips ; a 
small army of veterans was his real answer. Tarif or 
Tarik, for this was the name of " the captain of the Lord's 
host," stealthily crossed the straits in boats, unobserved 
by the Gothic cruisers, and landed upon the inhospitable 
rock of Calpe, which from that time has born the name 
of " the hill of Tarik"— Geber-al-Tarik, Gibraltar.* There 
he established his depot, and commenced those military 
structures, which to this day command the admiration of 
military engineers, and demonstrate the skill of the Arab 
soldier in the art of fortification.^ 

* " Mount Abyla [the Pillar of save in what is requisite for the ap 

Hercules on the African side] is plication of gunpowder, or what is 

called by the Moors after Mouza, who superfluous for defence, the Moors 

planned the expedition ; and Calpe is had rendered Gibraltar what it is to- 

now named after Tarif, the leader day. 

who conducted it." — Pillars of Her- " They have even left us struc- 

cules, vol. I., page 32. tures of the greatest service — as re- 

f "Half of this bristling tongue sisting the effects of gunpowder, and 

[the Kock of Gibraltar] was formed such as we are able neither to rival 

unapproachable [by nature] ; man nor imitate." — Ibid., page 33. 
has fenced in the other. This sea- " The Moorish fort is, as a whole, 

wall, from end to end, is the work of a building of great interest. An 

the Moors. On the north, too, all our architect of the last century, speaks 

defences are restorations of the Moor- of it as one of the most remarkable 

ish works ; even in the galleries they on the soil of Europe. It stands a 

have been our forerunners. In fact, match for man and time, defy"ng at 



PREPARATIONS FOR DEFENCE. 241 



And now the marshalling of armies for a contest that 
was to decide the possession of the Peninsula, for the 
coming seven hundred years, began. The Gothic king, 
his bishops and his barons, exerted themselves to enrol 
a force sufficient to crush the audacious invader of so 
powerful a kingdom. Theirs was declared a holy war, 
and salvation freely offered to all who bore their part 
in it, how vile soever their lives had hitherto been. 
Every effort was used to incite an unwilling people to 
arms. The approaching enemy was represented in the 
blackest colors in which demons could be painted. But 
as it was not the people, but princes, prelates, and barons, 
who were to suffer in the approaching conflict, notwith- 
standing every deception practised to prejudice the minds 
of Spaniards against their coming deliverers, they stood 
aloof, and refused the proffered indulgences. 

Cadiz and Tartesse adjoin the district of Medina- 
Sidonia, where, in the traditional era, Rameses IV., of 
Madinet-Aboo,* with the Sidonians, defeated the Gerions. 
It is a spot sacred in the mythology of the ancients. 
Here, as we have seen, Osiris Denis slew the elder of 
the Gerions. Here his son, Hercules the Great, won his 
brightest laurels in contest with the younger Gerions. 
Here Atlas despoiled his brother of the seigniory of the 



once the inventions of the one, and * The common notion is, that 

the ravages of the other. this name is a combination of the 

" Here is an original design and name of the Arabian town Madina, 

substance ; a work surpassing those and Sidon. I cannot make a point 

of the Romans in strength, and equal- out of this resemblance of names ; for 

ling those of the Egyptians in dura- it is not tenable as a point, but re- 

bility." — Ibid., page 35. markable as a coincidence. 
16 



242 MORAL POWER OF TARIK. 



Turdetanians. Here Oris [Houis], whoj after his deifica- 
tion, presided over the horary divisions of time, ruled 
as king.* Here Tefta, from Africa, proclaimed himself 
King of Spain.* With this spot is associated the name 
of Neptune, deified by the Libyans,* and received into 
the category of Grecian divinities. Here, too, the Gre- 
cian Hercules vanquished the Titans.* Such were the 
associations surrounding the battle-field of Gaudalete, on 
w^iich Tarik and his little army performed such prodi- 
gies of valor as to demonstrate that religious zeal, founded 
on moral principle, was a more potent element in war 
than pagan heroism. Philosophers have labored to ac- 
count for so complete a victory, with such inadequate 
means, as Tarik there achieved. If the reasons they 
have assigned are unsatisfactory, it is because they have 
not fully appreciated the mighty power, the almost super- 
natural force faith lends, even to the feeble battalions, in 
times of their greatest extremity.*]" 

The Goths were still a warlike people. They were not 
wanting in courage, — courage equal to that of their Afri- 
can enemies, as was demonstrated by the progress of their 
arms in Africa itself. Yet, in the midst of Gothic tri- 

* All these subjects of tradi- fully, to make out, to a certain extent, 

tional history have been fully treated a common nationality ; -n-hereas there 

in the former part of this Chapter. was a total dissimilarity. 

I Urquhart, whom we have pretty Other historians, in their anxiety 

fully followed as an author present- to be poetical, lose sight of the power 

ing common sense views of familiar that moves the world — moral prin- 

subjects, is here entirely at fault, ciple. 

He philosophizes rather than moral- Urquhart, though entirely unsatis- 

izes, upon this extraordinary event in factory in his philosophy, yet gives 

human history. He tries, unsuccess- the true reason in a paragraph. 



MORAL POWER OF TARIK. 2il 



umphs, both by land and sea,* a mere handful of invaders 
assail the citadel of their strength. Tarik was no blind 
fanatic, but a careful calculator and judge of men. He 
expected success, not only as the reward of valor, but as 
the certain result of his established character for justice 
and good faith, in dealing with nations worn out, and 
perishing, under a government of craft.-]- These people, 
who never dreamed for a moment of trusting to the 
pledges of their own rulers, confided implicitly in the 
word of an enemy. This was to him a tower of strength. 
It was a power that disarmed opposition, and assured the 
most timid of security. His word, it was well known, he 
valued beyond life, and when he offered protection to all 
who submitted to his authority, he conquered more by 
character than by the sword. He fully understood the 
political condition of Spain, and that the discontented 
wanted only a nucleus of brave and faithful men around 
whom to rally, in order to change the national religion 
and government. To all such he gave the highest pledge 
of his sincerity, by burning, in the harbor of Gibraltar, 
the boats that brought him into the country. He was a 
man of but few words, yet the speech he made to his sol- 
diers, when the last hope of retreat was gone, partakes 



* " They [the Goths] were at the ism was propagated by the sword, 

very time masters, by recent triumphs, It was Islamism that aided the con- 

of the sea ; and possessors until that quest of the Saracens. Its force lay 

very year of strong places in Africa, in applying the dictates of religion 

whence they were carrying on aggres- directly as a restraint upon the con- 

sive war against the Moors." — Ibid., duct of government, rendering the 

vol. I., page 95. king, as well as his humblest vassal, 

t "Here was exposed the imbe- equally subjects of the law." — Pillars, 

cility of the supposition that Islam- vol. I., page 96. 



244 YiEws OF "the faithful." 



of moral sublimity : " The enemy is before you, the sea 
is behind — follow me." An idea and a speech afterwards 
plagiarized by Cortez, as we shall see presently. 

To understand the battle of Gaudalete we must assume 
the position, and if possible catch the inspiration that 
animated the Arabian hero while contemplating the rival 
23arties in the fight. His little army of bronzed veterans 
he regarded as the chosen avengers of God's justice. Life 
to them was a matter of indifference, when engaged in 
vindicating God's glory, and the re-establishment of his 
purely spiritual worship, as they understood the contro- 
versy. With them the war-cry Alla-acbar, " God is 
great," or rather " God's is the victory," had a meaning 
and a significance incomprehensible to other men. It 
was not they, but Alia, that had a controversy with this 
faithless people, who had forsaken his true worship, and 
given themselves over to the abominations of the heathen, 
and who had set up images in the house where he alone 
should be adored. We are told that religious fanaticism 
makes men brave. It is not fanaticism only, for then 
the greatest fanatics in the world, the cowardly Bramins. 
would be brave. It is rather that religious zeal, which 
overpowers, so as to elevate the moral principles above 
all personal considerations. This it is, not fanaticism, 
that converts men into heroes. And such was the moral 
power that sustained the little army of Tarik in the hour 
of trial, and made them incapable of fear. 

With his diminutive band the hero surveyed the over- 
whelming legions of the enemy with the eye of a " true 
believer." Theirs was, indeed, a brilliant array in all the 



CHRISTIAN IMITATION OF THE EGYPTIANS. 245 



pomp and panoply of war. But he also fully understood 
the weakness that pervaded its ranks. Neither courage 
nor discipline were wanting, but confidence in each other. 
This made them powerless as the Sepoys, without their 
European officers. They could rely upon the word of 
their enemy, but distrusted their own leaders. As a 
counterpoise to this unseen weakness, there was an 
abundant display of religious ceremonial, such as the 
priests of Osiris might have celebrated on the same spot 
three thousand years before. Absolution and a prosper- 
ous journey through the realms of Osiris, or Purgatory, 
were again freely offered to the " Ghristimis" who should 
die in the battle. Where the Egyptian priests would have 
burned incense, and made offerings to the emblems and 
representatives of their canonized kings,* offerings were 
now given to the images and reliques-j- of the Roman saints. 
Ab Rameses invoked the intercession of his predecessors,^ 
most likely on this same spot, so also the Roman saints 
were called upon for miracles in behalf of their votaries, 
while incense was burning throughout the Spanish host 
with more than Egyptian or Sidonian profusion. Amu- 



* " The Tablet of Karnak is a re- live dog is superior to a dead lion :" 

presentation of Thothmes III., offer- Proverbs. 

ing gifts to a series of sixty-one % The fact that the above-men- 
kings, disposed in four lines around tioned list does not agree with that 
the walls." — Kenrick, vol. II., page of Abydos for the forty-four first 
90. names, is a strong argument that they 

f This use of old bones, is not bor- were not placed there for the same 
rowed from Phoenicians, or Egyp- purpose ; but that the sixty-one, is 
tians. It is a purely Christian inven- the number of the kings, or benefac- 
tion. The Egyptian animal adoration tors of Egypt that had been adjudged 
was as much superior to this, as " a a royal burial, viz., canonized. 



246 FIRST. DAY OF THE BATTLE. 



lets, too, were distributed as among the Egyptians,* while 
the emblem of " the Sidonian goddess,"f the Latin cross, 
was carried through the camp. Tarik feared them not, 
though they were "even as the sand that is upon the 
seashore in multitude, with horses and chariots very 
many."J His soul was fired within him, when he saw 
such idolatry practised in the name of the " Holy God." 
And he contemplated as a certain prey provided by 
Jehovah for his faithful servants — this imposing multitude 
arrayed against him, whose hearts He had hardened,^ 
that they should come against him in battle, to the end 
that he might be avenged of his enemies. 

The faithful repeated their simple pra^^ers to Alia, and 
the Ulemas exhorted them to faithfulness ; then, with the 
war-cry AUa-achar, the bronzed children of the desert 
rushed upon the unbelievers. They respected not mitres, 
they heeded not crosses. Incense, and the images of the 
saints, were an exceeding abomination, and amulets an 
uncertain protection against a Damascus blade. Priests, 
in their hands, were weak as women, and they delighted 
in the slaughter of bishops. Driven and swayed this 
way and that, by the preponderance of numbers, and b}* 
Gothic discipline, the little army still remained unbroken. 
Like iron men, they bore the brunt of the first encounter, 



* " Thothmes III. His name f See Plate CXLI., toI. V. of Cal- 

seems to have been held in high vene- met. No. 7. 

ration by posterity ; and is so found The reader must excuse the use of 

on a great number of scarabcei and the modern name for this old emblem 

amulets." — Kenrick, vol. II., page of the idolaters of Palestine. This 

193. emblem has been fully discussed in 

See also previous note on Amulets, the last chapter. 

X Joshua si. 4, 20. 



TREASON OF THE ARCHBISHOP OPAS. 247 



and without material loss, and in return tliej dealt such 
blows as proved the spirit that animated them. Enve- 
loped with foes, they still fought on with undiminished 
hope, and with a heroism more than human. A whole 
day of constant trial had not enervated them, and with 
renewed confidence in the next day's success they rested, 
while darkness interrupted the conflict. Not to have 
been beaten on the first day was itself a victory, or at 
least an assurance that victory was attainable. 

With the dawn the struggle was renewed, and it con- 
tinued from day to day with like results, until the power 
of endurance in the Gothic ranks began to waver ; at least 
there were symptoms of yielding among the unbelievers. 
Then it was that that memorable treason occurred to that 
lineal successor of Judas Iscariot — the Archbishop of 
Seville, which decided the fate of the contest, the fate of 
Spain. This Opas was doubtless no worse than the rest 
of his brethren, though the betrayer of his master. But 
as his estates lay nearer the scene of action, when the 
hour of trial came, he was unequal to the sacrifice 
required. The treasures of the saints were distant, and 
his chance of obtaining a portion extremely remote, while 
the dangers of worldly ruin were close at hand. He had, 
doubtless, been as prolific as other prelates in the offers 
of indulgence and dispensation, to all who should prove 
faithful in the trying hour, but when that hour came he 
was unwilling to trust to his own prescriptions. He offered 
Paradise to others on terms he himself was disinclined to 
accept. Thus, under the pressure of strong temptation, 
he apostatized, and in consequence has been made the 



248 RELIGIOUS RESULTS OF THE VICTORY. 



scapegoat of all the calamities that befell Catholicism in 
Spain. Had he really been a Christian, we should have 
looked upon his fall as upon that of Peter, an offence to 
be treated with charity. But considering him as a man 
of the world only, who made religion a trade, there is 
nothing in the change but the substitution of one false 
system for another. But this act of the archbishoj) was 
not the cause of the defeat of the Spaniards, it was one 
of its results. While the chances of battle were doubt- 
ful, he was faithful, but when the balance declined he 
passed over to the Saracens. 

Now began the rout of the armies of Roderick, the 
last of the Goths. Submission or flight were the alterna- 
tives, and submission held out the greatest inducements. 
There was no more resistance, that deserved the name. 
The little band of Saracens then spread themselves like a 
fan over the country, not to conquer but to take posses- 
sion, and to receive the submission of a willing people. 
It had been a religious contest, so they regarded it. 
Creed had been pitted against creed. One party had 
invoked a whole calendar of Saints, longer than that of 
the Egyptian Pharaohs ; the other the assistance of the 
Almighty alone. The people had looked on, watching 
the result as the apostate Israelites did in the times of 
Elijah. And it was Jehovah alone who answered. The 
result had so much the appearance of the miraculous, to 
those, who had been taught to look for a continuous 
dispensation of miracles, that they accepted this as the 
verdict of the Almighty. 

As there is no parallel to the victory on record, so 



GENIUS OF THE AEABS. 249 



neither is there any parallel to its results. As the defeat 
was totalj and the rout complete, in the contest with 
carnal weapons, so was it also in the spiritual controversy. 
The defeated thought they had faithfully tested the value 
of their saintly intercessors, and found them wanting. 
There were none able to deliver in the time of trial, and 
they hasted to embrace the new faith, which, after all, was 
only a slight modification of their own Arian belief In 
no other way can this sudden change be accounted for, 
since perfect toleration was accorded to every creed. But 
of those who still adhered to the Romish faith, the 
submission was so perfect, that the army was not long 
required in Spain. In a few months after this memorable 
battle, it was concentrated on the north side of the 
Pyrenees; there its triumphant march was checked, by 
orders from Damascus,* and the contemplated march by 
Italy on Constantinople abandoned. Under such circum- 
stances the Moslem army turned back from its French 
expedition, and the genius of the Arabs was devoted to 
the cultivation of the arts of peace, in what, just before, 
was a turbulent and barbarous kingdom. Let us now 
contemplate Spain in its new aspect; an independent 
Caliphate, and a seat of learning and refinement, while the 

* " Within a few months from Greek Empire in the rear. When the 

the battle of Gaudulete, the Moorish Saracens did invade, it was after the 

troops had passed beyond the Pyre- generation of conquerors had passed 

nees, and were encamped at Carcas- way — when France was recovering 

sone. There the tide of victory was from the lethargy of her Merovingian 

arrested, not by the hammer of race, and when a schism had been 

Charles Martel, but by orders from established between Spain and the 

Damascus. It was the project of the Caliphate." — Pillars of Hercules, vol. 

Saracen chief to conquer France, and I., page 97. 
thence to march to the attack of the 



250 CALIPHATE OF CORDOVA. 



rest of Europe was wrapped in the darkness and barbarism 
of the feudal ages. 

We can hardly be convinced of the reality of this 
sudden transformation of the Gothic kingdom. It has so 
much the air of romance. It is so entirely at war with 
the Romish ideas it superseded, and to which it afterwards 
succumbed. It is so exceptional in its character to every- 
thing that had gone before, since the time of Egyptian 
and Phoenician paganism. To believe it to have sprung 
at once into life, to have risen to the zenith of refinement 
and elegance, and then to have passed away, leaving 
Spain as it found it, taxes our credulity severely. Before 
the Arab invasion the peninsula was a prey to priests, 
the hotbed of superstition, notorious for royal debauch- 
eries, mingled with ostentatious display of religious zeal. 
So was it again to become as soon as the Moslem kingdom 
disappeared,* So is it now.f Yet, singularly enough. 



* Roderick the Goth was not sin- same paper that announces the tem- 

gular in his debaucheries. Indeed porary dismission of her paramour, 

a virtuous king, or even queen, of informs us of her devout piety in fol- 

Spain would be almost an anomaly, lowing on foot through the streets 

if we are to believe the recorded of Madrid, a consecrated wafer ! We 

characters of these monarchs. In no know that the object of Louis Philip, 

other country than Spain could such and Queen-Dowager Christina, in se- 

a monstrous excuse be tolerated, as lecting for her as a husband the pre- 

that given by Isabella for usurping sent king, was that she should not have 

the crown of Castile — that Joanna, children ! The fathers of this queenly 

the daughter of her brother's wife, devotee's children are unblushingly 

Henry IV., was not legitimate, though named in public — Serano, the father 

acknowledged to be such by the king of the eldest ; and her present para- 

himself. mour claims the paternity of the 

f Of the present queen, her mo- second. Yet is she regarded as much 

ther, and a host of others that pre- of a saint at Rome, as was Isabella ; 

ceeded them, the least said of their or Jezebel the wife of Ahab, regarded 

reputation for virtue the better. The as a saint at Tyre. 



ITS RAPID GROWTH. 251 



the period of Arab rule is the only era in the Spanish 
annals whose written history is above suspicion. Before, 
all was barbarism, after it came the Inquisition. Abderr- 
haman, the heir of the Ommyades, escaping the slaughter 
of his kindred at Damascus, was received, as the true 
successor of the prophet, and acknowledged as Caliph at 
Cordova. Thus was the Peninsula severed from the 
great trunk of Moslem dominion, and an oriental king- 
dom constituted in the West. 

The ideas underlying this new order of things were 
oriental, while the masses who embraced them were 
Celts.* Though Arabia and Mauritania could have 
furnished but a small population to migrate, they offered 
sufficient to impress their peculiar character upon the 
mingled people of the country. Even Christians lost 
their Latin vernacular, and celebrated their worship in 
Mosarabic. But those who embraced the cause of Islam 
renounced, not simply their former faith; they became 
Arabians in social organization, as well as in religion. 
The wise and liberal administration of the first Caliph 
consolidated the jarring elements of that empire, which 
the sword of Tarik had won. Agriculture flourished; 
and new systems of cultivation were introduced under the 
complete protection of person and property afforded by 
his rule. In place of the rude labor of the Goth, the 

Nor is she a whit behind her mo- the greatest of Spanish ministers, 

ther, or behind the average of the * It is hardly worth repeating the 

queens of Spain. former arguments on the subject of 

The nominal father of the greatest the ante-Gothic population of the Pe- 

of Spanish kings, Charles III., was ninsula. 
almost an idiot : his probable father, 



252 



ITS PROSPERITY. 



most perfect oriental models were followed. Valleys, 
before abandoned, were now so artistically cultivated,* as 
to present the appearance of a fairy landscape. Thriving 
villages immediately arose on every side. For the 
arbitrary rules of feudalism-]- the oriental system of village 
proprietary-]- was substituted. Each member of the 
various communities felt a lively interest in his neighbor's 
ability to bear his proper proportion of the common 
burdens. This practical enfranchisement of the serf was 
the foundation of Arabian prosperity, and that on which 
arose the voluptuous civilization, which succeeded, and 



* " The Arabs made immense 
progress in agriculture. The art of 
manuring and watering the soil had 
been carried to its highest perfec- 
tion. A narrow runnel, by means 
of trenches skilfully arranged, con- 
veyed fertility over a vast extent of 
ground. Aqueducts were constructed, 
artificial ponds [albuJieras) were dug 
to serve as reservoirs of water. All 
the exotic trees, which a climate so 
varied as that of the Peninsula per- 
mitted them to cultivate ; and the 
balmy flowers of the East, which the 
Arabs prize so highly as perfumes, 
were introduced by them. Thus 
Spain owes to the Arabs her rice, 
cotton, sugar-cane, saffron, and the 
date-tree — which ripens on all the 
coast, and especially at Eiche, near 
Alicant, where an entire forest of 
them is to be seen. Besides, the 
number of Arab works on agricul- 
ture would alone prove to what a 
high degree the art had been brought 
in Spain. 

" Nothing equals the beauty of the 
spectacle, which must have been pre- 



sented in that golden age of Spanish 
agriculture, by the rich hueria of Ya- 
lentia — one of the most productive 
and best-watered spots on the earth ; 
the picturesque vega of Granada — a 
garden of olive and orange trees thirty 
leagues in length, watered by five 
rivers and sheltered by the Sierra 
Nevada, the highest of all Spain; 
the fertile basin of the Guadalquivir 
stretching far out of sight along the 
verdant swells of the Sierra Morena, 
with the thousands of villages group- 
ed around Cordova, the queen of the 
valley." — History of Spain, by M. 
Rosseau St. Hilaire, Prof, of the Sor- 
honne. Paris. Vol. VI., pages 138 
to 141. 

t The Oriental system of holding 
lands by villages {Pueblos) in com- 
mon, was retained by the Castilian 
conquerors ; but the beneficial charac- 
ter of the system was destroyed by 
another ; that of granting to feudal 
lords the right of collecting the reve- 
nues of these Pueblos, as well as of 
large cities — which amounted to fill- 
ing Spain with petty tyrants. 



ITS PROSPERITY. 



253 



which could only be permanently sustamed by an 
enlightened peasantry. The traveller, who now wanders 
over the dry and arid plains, and through the neglected 
valleys of Castile, can hardly realize, that these were 
once the fruitful sources and material wealth of a mighty 
kingdom. These very wa^stes were then covered by the 
practical application of science. The alternation of crop, 
of forest, and of cultivated field, varied, with rich 
harvests, the vast region over which the flocks of the 
Mesta* now wander. These plains still yield a scanty 
herbage, and a slender crop, the natural product, unaided 
by the thrifty hand of science. The merchant was also 
prosperous ; for the riches, which the soil produced, flowed 
in a thousand channels of successful industry, and then 



* " English sheep were first 
brought into Spain in the Spanish 
caracks [called " marinas," not "meri- 
nas."] It was then that the office of 
Judge of the Mesta had its rise. A 
few years after this event relating to 
the English sheep, our kingdom was 
desolated by an universal pestilence 
which, in 1348, ruined Spain and 
part of Asia ; and in 1350, carried 
off King Alphonso. The dominions 
of Spain suffered infinitely on this 
dismal occasion, insomuch that since 
the universal Deluge, there is no in- 
stance of an equal calamity ; for it 
wasted the country, and swept away 
two-thirds of the inhabitants. 

" Spain became depopulated, and 
husbandry seemed to be lost ; the 
many rural churches, in the centre of 
the kingdom, are proofs of this terri- 
ble havoc that ruined whole villages, 
of which Eriam periere ruina. Thus 



four or five villages, of two hundred 
families, were destroyed ; and the 
country changed into a swamp, or 
a heath, open to any invader, and 
free to the first comer who was will- 
ing to take possession. It is to this 
calamitous time we must attribute 
the origin of the Mesta. The Eng- 
lish sheep were first brought into the 
mountains of Segovia, (without the 
least idea of the Mesta.) or Estrama- 
dura. . . . When the industrious 
Moors possessed Estramadura, they 
turned the whole province into a gar- 
den. . . . The Mesta not only de- 
populates Estramadura, but also the 
kingdoms of Leon and Castile, where 
the sheep destroy the country in their 
passage, preventing the farmers from 
enclosing their lands according to 
their natural rights." — Dillon's Nat. 
History of Spain. London, 1782. 
Page 57, &c. 



264 



PROGRESS OF LEARNING. 



reacting supplied that capital, which the many improve- 
ments necessary to double its productiveness, required. 
Thus, while surrounding nations were exhausting their 
resources in perpetual wars, Spain, by cultivating the arts 
of peace, under the Saracens, became almost entire a 
garden, sustaining an immense population,* and a bene- 
ficial commerce with the whole Arab world. j* 

Learning thrived, for there was industry and wealth 
with which to reward its professors. There the wild tales 
and songs | of the desert received the polish of the aca- 
demy. Philosophy of the Aristotelian school gained the 



* " The pious indifference of go- 
vernments, founded on Islamism, 
never having permitted anything in 
the shape of a census, it is impossible 
to estimate, with any degree of cer- 
tainty, the number of their subjects. 
We merely know from Conde, that 
besides the capital, and the six pro- 
vincial chief towns, Toledo, Merida, 
Saragossa, Valentia, Seville, and 
Tadmir, they reckoned eighty second- 
rate, and three hundred third-rate 
towns, without mentioning villages, 
and towers, and strongholds, that 
were innumerable. Far from being 
diminished by the fall of the Ommi- 
ade empire, this mass of inhabitants 
was further increased by the invasion 
of the Berbers ; and we shall find the 
Almoraride Yussouf boasting that 
in his vast states of the Magreb and 
Spain, the cJiotbaJi was received for 
him from nineteen thousand pulpits." 
— St. Hilaire, vol. VI., pages 148- 
149. 

t I can find no statistics of this 
commerce, except in general terms ; 
that it was immense. The reader has 



already been made acquainted with 
the success of the Arabs in naviga- 
tion and commerce. The Phoenicians 
were called sea-faring Arabs [Pillars 
of Hercules, vol. I., page 146) ; or a 
more correct statement would be, 
that from an early period the Arabs 
of the Red Sea acted in concert with 
the Phoenicians of the Mediterranean. 
The compass, and the skill in this 
art which they exhibited when Vasco 
De Gama reached the Indian Ocean, 
was the continuation of the commerce 
of a remote antiquity, as is evidenced 
by the very large Arab population of 
Ceylon. This ancient commerce was 
extended as far to the westward as 
their conquests reached. 

X "A branch of literature in 
which the Arabs have preserved an 
indisputable superiority, is the tale, 
or novel." — St. Hilaire, page 185. 

" The art of music acquired among 
the Arabs a regularity which it never 
attained among the Greeks." — Ibid. 

"We shall not attempt to pass in 
review the poets — a volume would not 
suffice." — Ihid., page 181. 



PROGRESS OF LE AR]S"I]SrG. 



255 



pre-eminence in Mahometan universities.'^ Grecian 
authors, translated into Arabic/j- were familiar studies. 
Rhyme was first introduced by them into the highest 
order of poetry,J and the models on which the first 
romances were built, were clearly Arabian. While sta- 
tistics, geography, and history § were carefully studied, 
treatises upon agriculture |1 and the arts show, too, that the 
practical, as well as the speculative, also attracted atten- 
tion. The encyclopsedist Avicenes^ indicates likewise 



* Under the memorable caliphate 
of Al-Mamon, Aristotle's philosophy 
was introduced and established among 
them ; and from them propagated, 
with their conquests, through Egypt, 
Africa, Spain, and other parts. As 
they chose Aristotle for their master, 
they chiefly applied themselves to 
that part of philosophy, called logic. 
— Britannica, vol. II., page 186. 

f "He [Al-Mamon] sent for all 
the best books out of Chaldea, Greece, 
Egypt, and Persia, relating to physic, 
astronomy, cosmography, music, chro- 
nology, &c., and pensioned a number 
of learned men, skilled in the several 
languages and sciences, to translate 
them into Arabic. By this means, 
divers of the Greek authors lost iu 
their own country and language, have 
been preserved iu Arabic. From that 
time Arabia became the chief seat of 
learning ; and we find mentioned by 
Abulpharagius, Pococke, D'Herbelot, 
and Hettinger, of learned men and 
books without number." — Ibid., vol. 
II., page 185. 

% "The modern Arabian poetry 
takes its date from the caliphate of 
Al-Rachid, who lived toward the close 
of the eighth century. Under him 



poetry became an art, and laws of 
prosody were laid down. Their com- 
parisons, in which they abounded, 
are taken, with little choice, from 
tents, camels, hunting, and the an- 
cient manners of the Arabs." — Ibid., 
page 186. 

§ " Statistics — a science so recent 
in Europe — and geography, were also 
successfully studied by them." — Ibid. 
page 186. 

"Among the different branches of 
human knowledge, one of those that 
were most zealously cultivated by 
the Arabs in Andalusia, was history. 
Their great superiority over the con- 
temporary Spanish chroniclers, con- 
sists in their giving us a deeper in- 
sight into the familiar life of people 
and kings." — Ibid. 

II " The number of Arabic works 
on agriculture, would alone prove to 
what a high degree of perfection the 
art had been brought in Spain." — 
Ibid., vol. VI., pages 138-144. 

1[ " Avicenes, after his death, en- 
joyed so great a reputation that till 
the twelfth century he was preferred, 
for the study of philosophy and medi- 
cine, to all his predecessors." 



256 



PROGRESS OF LEARNING. 



how largely we are indebted to the East for the rudi- 
ments of our knowledge. Under these propitious influ- 
ences, mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, and navigation 
obtained a high degree of development, as is evinced by 
the use of Arabian authors in the schools of other 
countries.* From their over-crowded universities and 
workshops scholars and artisans wandered throughout 
barbarous Europe,-]- under various flimsy disguises, in 
search of employment and wealth, while Christians, like 
Roger Bacon and Calvert, equally thirsting for the know- 
ledge the Peninsula possessed, repaired to the halls of Cor- 
dova, as to the highest existing school in which it could 
be acquired. 



* " His [Avicenes'] works were the 
only writings in vogue in schools, 
even in Europe. The following are 
the titles : — 

" 1. Of the Utility and Advantages 
of Science — 20 hooks. 

" 2. Of Innocence and Criminality 
— 2 hooks. 

"3. Of Health and Remedies — 18 
hooks. 

"4. Means of Preserving Health — 
3 books. 

" 5. Canon of Physic — 14 books. 

" 6. Astronomical Observations — 1 
book. 

" 7. Mathematical Sciences. 

"8. On Theorems ; on Mathemati- 
cal and Theological Demonstrations. 

" 9. Arabic Language and its Pro- 
prieties. 

" 10. On the Last Judgment. 

"11. Origin of the Soul and the 
Restoration of Bodies. 

" 12. The Ends we should propose 
to ourselves in Harangues and Philo- 
sophical Argumentations. 



" 13. Demonstration of the Colla- 
teral of Spheres. 

"14. Abridgments of Euclid. 

" 15. Finity and Infinity. 

" 16. Physics and Metaphysics. 

" 17. Animals and Vegetables. 

" 18. Encyclopgedia — 20 volumes." 
Ibid., vol. II., page 688. 

t It is hard to comprehend the 
depths of barbarism to which the 
people of Europe were reduced by the 
feudal system — when the serfs were 
contented with a filthy sheepskin, 
and a sty for a dwelling ; while the 
castles of nobles exhibited such scenes 
of filth that it was charged, as ex- 
travance, against the Archbishop of 
Canterbury, that he actually changed 
the straw upon his floors daily ! 

For the use of such barbarians, 
cathedrals, minsters, and churches 
were built according to the most per- 
fect systems of Arab architecture. 
The idea that the Goths had any 
knowledge of architecture, is absurd. 



DISSEMINATION OF LEARNING. 257 



Their mathematicians first taught arithmetic, algebra. 
Al Gehra, and trigonometry.* Their attainments in medi- 
cine caused their doctors also to be eagerly sought for by 
the princes and nobles of Christendom. Their chemists 
were highly esteemed, too, as al chemists, particularly in 
the application of that science to metals. An acquaint- 
ance with the stars, in which they surpassed all others, 
was then considered of the first importance -j: — the study 
of nativities and the future of children being considered 
an unquestioned science. Their architects, artisans, and 
engineers found ready employment, too, wherever a min- 
ster, a cathedral, or even a fortress,^ was to be built. Yet 
was their religion held in such abhorrence by all the 
neighboring states, that, whenever their improvements or 
inventions came into general use, they were severally 
accredited to some Christian impostor, for it was not safe 
to admit the true oris-in of these inventions. 



* " Physical and mathematical J " Gibraltar, which is utterly 

sciences may be reckoned among the valueless in the present political 

true claims to glory of the Arabs, organization of Europe — its harbor 

Our system of numeration practised being commanded by the Spanish lines 

by them -was communicated to the of St. Rock, and its own batteries com- 

West by the learned Gerbert, who manding nothing" — Pillars of Her- 

had studied at Cordova. Algebra owes cules, I., p. , — " was of the utmost 

its name to one of their mathemati- importance, as one of the two links 

cians. Trigonometry, cultivated by that bound Africa to Spain. We 

the Arabs, is indebted to them for its have already seen that, in its present 

present form." — St. Hilaire, page form and shape, it is entirely Moorish, 

195. or Arab ; the English works being 

f " Astronomy was especially their merely restoration ; that is, this won- 

study : the obliquity of the ecliptic, der of the world, the fortress of Gib- 

the annual motion of the equinoxes, raltar, is the work of the Arabs." 
and the duration of the tropical year, The next fortress in importance is 

were all ascertained by them." — the Alhambra, not as celebrated, but 

Idem., pp. 196, 197. a not less wonderful work. 
17 



:^oi 



EFFECTS OF THIS CIVILIZATION. 



This condition of affairs was at best unnatural, and 
became continually more so as the number of fugitive new 
Christians* disguised Saracens, increased ; a result that 
followed every success of the Castilians, as it contracted 
the territory occupied by the Arabs or Moors. Thus the 
moral and intellectual stagnation, which idolatrous and 
sensuous worship superinduces, was constantly disturbed 
from without by the introduction of new ideas. If their 
natural influence was unfelt in Castile, or rather unheeded 
there, in the midst of Moorish wars, it none the less 
smouldered for centuries in the more distant parts of 
Europe, until it burst forth at last, as a new civilization, 
restoring the spiritual worship of the Almighty.-]* 



* This name, given to converted 
Moslems and Jews of Spain, was also 
an epithet. It was well known that 
there was usually no sincerity in 
these conversions. They were most 
often compulsory, or resorted to, to 
avoid violence. The richest harvest, 
in blood and treasure, reaped by the 
Inquisition, was among thenew Christ- 
ians. It was not difficult to establish 
against any new Christian of wealth 
a charge of secret practice of his for- 
mer faith, which was a sufficient 
ground for a confiscation of goods, if 
not of death by torture. 

t The connection between an idol- 
atrous conception of the Deity and 
mental stagnation — such as charac- 
terized heathen nations and the Ro- 
manists, before the Reformation, is 
not sufficiently weighed. We find 
almost all the arts, dignified with the 
title of discoveries and inventions of 
the fifteenth century, to have been in 



common use among the Egyptians as 
early as the building of their rock tem- 
ples. Some, like the manufacture of 
glass, and even the chemical combi- 
nation of colors, seem to have reached 
a more perfect state then than they 
have since attained. Others again 
were but half developed; while still 
others were only in their crude state, 
when the lethargy and idolatry super- 
induced seized upon the intellects of 
men, and all progress ceased. 

This law of unchangeableness is 
equally true of China and of India, 
from the very establishment of their 
paganism. The same is true of Greece, 
even, excepting the arts that spring 
from idolatry and voluptuousness — 
painting and sculpture. So was it 
with modern Europe, until the alleged 
discoveries of the fifteenth century 
unsettled men's intellects, and burst 
the bands of " sublime repose" in 
which Rome delights, and can only 



ORIGIN OF IIISTOKIES OF MEXICO. 259 



We have thus fully dwelt on the character of the 
Spanish Arabs, that the reader might see at a glance the 
mine from whence the fabulous histories of Mexico were 
drawn. There Fernando de Alva, the quadroon, obtained 
the material for transforming his mud-built village of Tez- 
cuco into the fabulous empire of his pretended ancestor, 
Nezhualcoyotl. The pictures Cortez drew of the Court 
of Montezuma were but clever parodies on that of Cordova 
or Granada. Moorish tales, interwoven with extravagant 
Indian legends, form our Spanish histories of the Aztec 
empire, as we have already noticed ; and yet these works 
Anglo-Saxons have heretofore received as authentic. 
Even the standard historian of America, Robertson, waxes 
eloquent in reflections on the alleged burning of Cortez' 
ships, and the pretended self-denial of Charles V. in the 
convent of St. Just.* Without scanning at all the cha- 
racter or position of his monkish authorities, without 
ascertaining whether they wrote under constraint or not, 
he seizes upon the colors already mixed by their unscru- 



flourish. The first inquiry, in rela- manca papers, which the Inquisition 

tion to modern civilization, should be, has so carefully preserved, he exhibits 

not what Christian invented such and himself more brutish than human, 

such arts already in common use while nominally withdrawn from 

among the Moors of Spain, but to state afi'airs for the restoration of his 

what race belonged, at that date, the health ! The fiendish method of pun- 

chemists, the schoolmasters, and ar- ishing the detected Lutherans he sug- 

chitects of Europe ? Were they not, gested, seems so to have endeared him 

in fact, new Christians ? to the authorized historians, that they 

* This prince must be considered represent him in the midst of his de- 

solely as a statesman ; whether he baucheries as a paragon of Christian 

really had any religion except such virtue, and this Presbyterian minister 

as policy suggested, is one of the eagerly seizes upon the fiction to turn 

things that will probably remain for an elegant period." 
ever undetermined. From the Sa- 



260 FAILURE OF MAHOMET ANISM. 



pulous hands. Brilliant tints are laid on, without measure, 
whenever the word Christian or Spaniard occurs, until 
they shine like the decaying carcass of a dolphin. Moor 
or Islam never fails to excite denunciations of polygamy^ 
and the false prophet, as if these were worse than the 
license that pervaded the Greek and Romish nations of 
that era, or than the habitual practice of imposture which 
constitutes the staple of Romanism. Seven hundred 
years of hostility between Moor and Spaniard originated 
a depth of hatred that totally disqualified the latter for 
bearing testimony against his former enemy. " The his- 
torian of America" should have been aware of this ; and 
that this continent owes nothing to the Spaniard. Its 
gains have resulted from his blunders or his crimes. But 
from the Spanish Arab it acquired the cultivation of rice, 
cotton, sugar, indigo, cochineal, saffron, and dates ; besides 
a whole pharmacy of medicinal plants,* and the manu- 
facture, too, of silk, cotton, woollen, morocco-leather,-|- 

* " It is certain we owe to them f Silk, cotton, and cloth manufac- 

most of our spices and aromatics, tories had been established in all 

as nutmegs, cloves, mace, and other parts of the kingdom, and the Arabs 

matters, the product of India. We were especially renowned for their 

may add that none of the gentle skill in dyeing leather and stuffs, 

purgatives were known to the Greeks, " The most industrious nations of 

and first introduced by the Arabs as modern Europe have not yet succeed- 

manna, senna, rhubarb, tamarind, ed in imparting to their embroideries 

cassia. They likewise brou|^ht sugar and their silk, gold, and silver stuffs 

into use in physic, where before only the solidity, elegance, and perfection 

honey was used. They also found which we admire, after the lapse of 

the art of preparing waters and oils two centuries, in the product of the 

of divers simples, and by distillation ancient manufactures of Spain. Ly- 

and sublimation." — Britannica, vol. ons, Nimes, and Paris have never 

II., page 186. possessed manufactures comparable 

" Many terms, still in use, are to those which formerly existed at 

purely Arabic, such as syrup, julep, Toledo, at Granada, at Seville, and at 

&c." — St. Hilaire, vol. VI., page 194. Segovia." — St. Hilaire. 



INDEBTEDNESS TO MOSLEMS. 



261 



paper,* with numberless other gifts, the common propert}' 
of Christendom.-j- 

In recounting the many benefits we have derived from 
the European Arab, we have to add one of vital import- 
ance in the art of war — gunpowder.^ Doubtless it was 
of that imperfect quality which now is and has been in 
use among oriental nations for many centuries ; and we 
may, perhaps, claim the credit of improving its quality to 
such a degree, as to enable us to dispense with the match- 
lock and other awkward contrivances. But in military 
engineering we must ever confess our obligation to the 
Saracen, so long as the fortifications of Gibraltar and the 
ruins of those of Algeciras remain ; while the monster 
balls there found,§ are of the size, modern experience has 



* " Lastly, the paper manufactured 
at Mecca, from the year 88 of the 
Hegira, was introduced into Spain in 
the twelfth century, and the Span- 
iards substituted linen for cotton, 
which the Arabs had used." — St. 
HiLAiRE, vol. VL, p. 144. 

f We must not forget to notice 
the famous Damascus and Toledo 
blades, which are a standing evidence 
of the success of the Arabs, in that 
difficult process in metallurgy — re- 
fining steel. 

In their civilization we miss but 
one branch of the fine arts — the 
delineations of the human form by 
either painting or sculpture ; because 
to this Moslems are conscientiously 
opposed. It is to Italy, the centre of 
European idolatry, that we must look 
for this art. 

% The battle of Cressy furnishes 
the earliest instance on record of the 



use of artillery by European Chris- 
tians. The history of the Spanish 
Arabs carries it to a much earlier 
period. It was employed by the 
Moorish king of Granada at the siege 
of Beza, 1312. It is distinctly noticed 
by an Arabian treatise, as ancient as 
1249, and Casiri quotes a passage 
from a Spanish author at the close of 
the eleventh century, which describes 
the use of artillery in a naval engage- 
ment of that period between the 
Moors of Tunis and Seville. — Pres- 

COTT. 

I Though I had been at Algeciras 
on several occasions, I now for the 
first time visited the walls. * * * 
To the north they are more remark- 
able. The material of these walls, 
not the building, is the marvel. One 
mass twelve feet thick and twenty- 
five feet high, and thirty long, has fall- 
en fifty feet without breaking. While 



262 THE ARAB IN MEXICAN HISTORY. 



proved to be best adapted to the defence of fortified 
positions. Thus all that we can boast of over the 
Spanish Arab is, that we have perfected some of his 
inventions. This is our claim to superiority, in sjDite of 
the Komish traditions incorporated with our primary 
text-books as facts of history. But light breaks in upon 
us daily -since Spanish despotism has ceased to withhold 
the records of the past. So much has already been 
unveiled as requires the preliminary chapter of every 
liistory of modern civilization to begin with that of the 
Arabs of Spain, and to claim its adoption as the starting 
point of the narrative, despite the prejudices that 
attach to the much abused name of Moslem. 

But in our case this voyage to Europe and the east 
has been unavoidable. We have but followed the hardly 
concealed footsteps of those monks, who were licensed to 
turn the expedition of Cortez into a holy war, long after 
the event. They have compelled us to run through the 
whole cycle of Spanish civilization during the sixteenth 
century : that the true origin of their fables might be 
made transparent. The story of the Cid, as we have 
seen, is fitted to a new character, in the person of 
Cortez, without any regard to the inaptness of the 
dramatica jpersonce, or the unfitness of the drapery. The 
burning of his boats in the harbor of Gibraltar was half 



examining these masses I observed hundred pounds. The governor was 

In the water large globes, and thought kind enough to permit me to have it 

at first they vrere urns, but on closer carried away- — indeed he offered me 

inspection they proved to be shot, one still larger from the store of the 

und I found one twenty inches in artillery ground. — Pillars of Hercules, 

diameter, and weighing about seven vol. I., page 49. 



AN APOLOGY. 26< 



the victory of Tarik. It assured the wavering among 
the Spanish malcontents., of his determination never to 
desert them," while it deprived the triumphant Gothic 
cruisers of a certain prey. In transferring this unparal- 
leled act of heroism to the new world, it becomes one of 
foolhardiness, without even a plausible motive. Thus 
we might run over the whole series of events that have 
been borrowed from Spanish Arabian history, fable, and 
song to adorn that of Mexico, where they are as much 
out of place as they would be in a war with some grand 
Indian confederacy on our north-western frontier. And 
still we must linger in Europe. We must trace the rise 
and progress of the Castilian race until it plants its 
footsteps in the new world, and then we again cross the 
ocean, with our materials arranged for the actual history 
of the war of the conquest. 

Before closing this chapter, the status of our literature 
suggests an apology is necessary, for having opened it in 
conformity with the, now neglected, rules of history — 
that we should try and snatch something from the wreck 
of antiquity. In other countries, the standard of history 
has been steadily rising for centuries ; but with us, it has 
been so lowered, as to sink every other qualification in 
the single one of turning faultless periods ; and a gentle- 
man possessing this, has been adjudged fully capable of 
purging the annals of Spain and her quondam colonies, 
from the mass of modern fable and forgery which now 
disfigure them. Incapable of submitting Cortez' statement 
-to the test, he assumes it to be true, even in those parts 
where it is impossible. Unable to detect the counterfeit 



264 AN APOLOGY. 



in Diaz — he pronounces him "the child of nature/' but does 
not on the testimony of this natural child reject the still 
more monstrous falsifier, Gomora ; but adopts them both, 
according to the custom of novelists ; and not the slightest 
objection is raised. Then descending lower and still 
lower; disregarding alike the warning of Lord Bacon 
"a credulous man is a deceiver,"* and of Tacitus fingunt 
simul creduntque'-^ — he rakes up even a devotee, Boturnini, 
and makes him also an historic authority, without over- 
taxing public credulity; though this wretch, as we have 
seen, out-Munchausens Pietro himself, and as he may 
have surpassed every other man in Spain in drawing the 
long bow, was justly selected for historiographer, at a time 
when death was the penalty for possessing a book not 
licensed by the Inquisition. Thus are discarded and 
disgusting impostures brought uj) from the literary 
cesspools of Spain to form for us the history of events 
that transpired on this continent hardly more than three 
hundred years ago ! 

* De Augmentis. Book I. Cap. I. page 47. f History, book 1, 51. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE ORIGIN OF THE CASTILIAN" RACE ; THEIR PROGRESS TO THE 
DISCOVERY OF AMERICA ; AND THE EVENTS THAT IMMEDI- 
ATELY FOLLOWED. 

Pelagius and Zimines found the kingdoms of Leon and Navarre, 265 — Bene- 
fits resulting from their revolt, 266 — Cause of Moslem decay, 267 — Decline 
of the Castilian race, 269 — Christopher Columbus, 271 — His character, 271 
— Quintanello introduces Columbus, 273 — A vindication of King Ferdinand, 
273 — Disappointments benefit Columbus, 275 — The motives that sustained 
him, 276 — The Atlantic crossed, 277 — The Indian population, when disco- 
vered, 278 — The enslavement of the Indians, 279 — The efi'ect of slavery on 
the Indians, 281 — Columbus returns successful, 282 — Traces of civilization 
first discovered, 283 — The builders of these temples or chapels on truncated 
pyramids, 285 — Origin of the idea of Indian civilization, 287 — The apology 
for returning, 288 — The efi'ect of this last discovery, 290 — Discrepancies in 
narratives, 291— The allegation of Indian idolatry, 292 — The island of Cozu- 
mel, 292 — Ruins on Cozumel Island, 294 — A temple found in a deserted 
district, 296 — The extinct race of Yucatan, 297 — Barter for gold and ob- 
serve picture writing, 299 — Human sacrifice, 301 — The end of Grijalva's 
expedition, 802 — Sociedad Mexicana, 303 — Don Juan Antonio Llorente, 303. 

We have now to deal with a third race that, within 
the historic period in Spain, has risen to eminence, occu- 
pied a commanding position, and sunk into decay. The 
modern Spaniard — the Castilian, a scion from the de- 
cayed trunk of the Spanish Goth — is to be our theme. Pe- 
lagius, to avenge upon a fellow-Christian the wrongs of his 
sister,* excited the Basques to insurrection, and with their 

* Numatius, otherwise called Mag- "For Pelagius, having a fair and 
nuza, a Christian by profession, but lovely sister in his house, this Mag- 
serving the Moors, and by them made nuza grew in love with her, and 
governor of Gigion. fearing he should not obtain her, she 

(265) 



266 LEON, NAYARRE. 



assistance established the kingdom of Leon. Zimines,* 
of a noble Gothic house, about the same time founded 
that of Navarre. The emancipation of these two states 
from Moorish dominion was followed by those of Castile, 
Aragon, and Catalonia — kingdoms whose condition was 
one of perpetual hostility to the Moors. The tolerant 
and liberal administration of Andaluz, the son of Musa, 
drew all, whether Christian or Moslem, desirous of peace 
and good government to him ;f while those who were dis- 
contented, in debt, or dazzled with the prospect of rich 
spoil, fell away to the Christian princes. Such were the 
elements of the feudal population of Spain. 

The incessant forays of these Christian borderers into 
Moslem territory, and the dread they inspired, did more 
to consolidate the heterogeneous elements of the new 
caliphate, than all that the combined influences of a mild 
government and religious toleration could effect. For 
these reasons the Arab dominion in Spain continued long 
after it had succumbed to Christian rule in Italy, Sardi- 
nia, and Sicily ; and long after the Tartar Moslem had 
subverted the Saracen empire in Syria, Egypt, and 

being wise and -well bred, her brother f " The city of Toledo, among 

being in the country, he resolved to others, had seven churches granted 

give him a commission to go to the them for the exercise of their reli- 

great Admiral Musa, in embassade gion. Moreover, it was granted that 

to Cordova, during which voyage he they should have judges of their own 

[Magnuza] forced this gentlewoman." religion and nation, and be governed 

Grimshaw, page 169 (C). by the laws of the kings of the Goths, 

* " At that time such as had re- with other privileges. By this means 

tired, and preserved themselves in the the Moors retained an infinite num- 

Pyrenees, Navarre, and the high ber of Christian families, which lived 

county of Arragon, began to stirr ; and multiplied under them, else Spain 

who chose Garcia Zimines for their had been left desert." — Ibid., page 

head."— Ibid., page 170. 168 (I.) 



CAUSE OF MOSLEM DECAY. 267 



Libya * The progress of the CastiUans and their con- 
federates, in population and in arms, Httle more than 
kept pace with the declining number of the Moslems. In 
fact their hostility was, to a certain extent, a real advan- 
tage to the Arabs, by gradually contracting their force 
within a narrower and narrower space, as their numbers 
diminished from natural causes. Thus they were kept 
constantly in a compact body, and compelled to employ 
every art of civilization to obtain a livelihood within so 
limited a territory. 

There could scarcely be found two races more instinct- 
ively repugnant to each other than the Arab and the 
Celt-Iberian, who unitedly formed the Moslem and also 
the Christian^- population of Spain. The Moorish ele- 
ment afterwards introduced,! added a third discordant 
stock. Religious enthusiasm was their sole bond of union. 
It overrode their mutual aversion; and likewise a natural 



* "About the year 756, at which met's sect, but a good number of 

time there were great troops of Turks them were Christians. For it is not 

beginne to disperse themselves over credible that the Africans, who were 

all Armenia, the which did overrunne made subject unto the Arabians a 

and spoil the Sarrazin's country." — little before their passage into Spaine, 

Ihid., page 244 (F.) borne and bread in the Christian reli- 

The reader will recollect that Sala- gion, and under Christian princes, 

din, who conquered Jerusalem from should so soon have changed their 

the Crusaders, was not a Saracen, but religion." — Ibid., page 168. 

a Turk. % "Besides the formal invasion of 

In fact, it was the cruelties of these the Miralmumin of Morocco, there 

barbarous Turks that gave rise to the was a continuous migration from 

Crusades. As long as the Caliphate Africa into Spain, both of those who 

had the power, it protected the Chris- wished to aid their brethren in their 

tians from them. contests with the Christians, and those 

t " They hold it for certain that all also who were attracted by the supe- 

the Moors, and other Africans which rior advantages the Peninsula held 

past into Spaine, were not of Maho- out." — Grimshaw, passim. 



268 CAUSE OF MOSLEM DECAY. 



law, the foundation of that repugnance. The Arab, 
whose heated blood had run in one uncontaminated stream 
from the days of the patriarchs, intermarried with the 
fair-complexioned Iberians, who from those of Japhet had 
dwelt beneath a colder sky, and inhaled the humid at- 
mosphere of Europe. The offspring of these unions, like 
that of the Castilian and North American Indian, was 
unnatural — ^more liable to disease, shorter lived, and less 
prolific than the unmixed blood of either race. Like the 
product of some engrafted trees, which exhausts the germ 
of both races in producing one brilHant specimen.* The 
Spanish account of the disappearance of the Peninsula 
population, both Christian and Moslem, by the pestilence 
of 1348, is an absurd idea. That plague could not have 
destroyed forty millions of people, however disastrous^ it 
may have been. In reality, the disappearance of the 
Saracens from Europe, Asia, and Africa, is to be explained 
by their organization ; they were simply a religious sect 
united under a political organization, and not a nation. 
With them the state was a composite of fragments of 
nationalities ; and it of necessity became extinct as soon as 
the natural laws, violated in its formation, came to enforce 
their penalty in sterility and premature decay. At the 
siege of Granada, in their last agonies they are invested 
with a dreamy grandeur ; but thereafter disappear in 



* In the present volume, as well as It is a key to the disappearance of 

in another often referred to, I have divers families of mankind, as. vrell 

so frequently pointed out the perni- as of races of animals and plants, 
cious effects of the intermixture of f This subject has been fully dis 

repugnant races, that it will not be cussed in a note to the last chapter, 
necessary further to discuss it here. 



DECLINE OF THE CASTILIAN RACE. 269 



forced conversion, exile, and slavery. Theirs was a thou- 
sand years of life, and an utter extinction. 

As the Saracen passed away, the Castilian rose in the 
zenith; shone brilliantly there, and then declined also. 
Now he, too, is sinking beneath the horizon, on this con- 
tinent at least. His most luminous hours, were but the 
reflection of that shining but eccentric race, whose place 
his rule apparently suj^plied. There was from the begin- 
ning much of the whited sepulchre in the Castilian. 
Besides the petty despotism of his barons,* and pseudo- 
miracle-working priests, security of life and property was 
also wantingf — with no unbelievers to devour, society 
would have fallen to pieces, had not the conclusion of 
the Moorish war been followed by the Inquisition. This 
institution bound all together in its serpent folds, and 
filled every pore with its poisonous slime, while thrust- 
ing its fangs into the national vitals. It thus became the 
common bond of unity, and the focus of Spanish power ; 
and when it ceased to exist, the nation on either side of 
the Atlantic fell into a political chaos. The present race 
has nearly completed the cycle of a thousand years — who 
next shall enter into the Peninsula, and take possession ? 
Who shall succeed the worn-out children of Castile ? 

Systematically bad in everything, they still performed 

* We cannot, in the compass of a nearly resulting from the king claim- 
brief note, enumerate the various ing the right to hear an appeal from 
immunities of the Spanish nobility, a decision of a baron in relation to 
or the difference in their privileges in his own serf. 

the different states of the Peninsula. f There was, of course, the usual 

It is sufficient to say of those of Ara- insecurity to life and property, which 

gon, they were nearly absolute mas- characterized all countries subject to 

ters of their peasants; a rebellion feudalism. 



270 Isabella's ambition. 



important functions in the wise designs of Omnipotence. 
Their cruelty and bad faith drove multitudes of the neio 
Christians'^ to seek a shelter among the hitherto barba- 
rous nations of Northern Europe, and to spread every- 
where their civilization. The ambition of a usurping 
princess, Isabella, led her to patronize the great and 
good Columbus. Her lust for dominion was not to be 
quenched by gratification. She was Queen of Catalonia, 
Aragon, and Sicily, by her marriage with Ferdinand; 
Queen of Castile by a successful usurpation of the rights of 
her niece Joanna, the daughter of Henry IV. ; and she 
obtained the crown of Navarre by fomenting insurrection 
against her husband's sister. It is true, she offered each 
of the unfortunate queens a compensation for their lost 
kingdoms, in the person of a husband — her own son, 
then in his swaddling clothes V\ Her designs on Portugal 

* Neither party in Spain placed late ambassador at Constantinople, 

any confidence in Jews and Moslems, the most learned archaeologist of our 

■who became Romanists from neces- day, that none of the old Greek race 

sity. They were everywhere fleeced now remain, and that those who speak 

and ill-treated, as persons beyond the modern Greek are descendants of the 

protection of Spanish law. barbarians who broke into the East- 

When learned men and artificers ern Empire, 

of this hated race scattered them- f The treatie with Portugal runs 

selves over Europe, they took good thus : " 2dly. That hee [the King of 

care, as we have seen, to conceal their Portugal] should sweare not to marrie 

origin. Hence the futile attempts to Donna Joana, his niece, who called 

conceal the truth about the revival of herself Queen of Castile and Leon, 

learning in Europe, after the con- " 3dly. That she being at that time 

quest of Granada, by alleging it eighteen years of age, should choose 

was the result of the conquest of one of three things within six months, 

Constantinople. The barbarians who that is to say, to forsake the relem of 

constituted that empire spoke only a Portugall without having ayd, means, 

bastard Greek, while the learned men or any assistance from Don Alphonso, 

of Spain were far better Greeks than or if she would tarrie there still, then 

any then in the country of the Pelasgi. to marrie John of Castile, who teas 

It is the opinion of Mr. Marsh, bur neioly horn, when he should come to 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 



271 



were unsuccessful, and the child she was so willing to 
barter for a kingdom died. In her sorrow, she turned 
to the realms of the unbelievers. Granada was con- 
quered, and its inhabitants enslaved. Then, as the 
Peninsula afforded no longer scope for her ambition, after 
she had set up an Inquisition* and a censorshi|), she 
readily entered into the schemes of the noble-hearted 
Genoese — Columbus. 

It is an agreeable duty to turn from the contemplation 
of a woman without natural affection, to dwell, even for 
a little time, upon the noble character of that truly good 
and great man, Columbus. He was nature's nobleman. 
His childlike simplicity and sincerity strangely contrast 
with the duplicity of the courtiers who surrounded him. 
The few kind words of the Queen made her appear to him 



age, or else to enter into one of the 
five orders of Religious of Santa Clara 
in Portugall. [The system of self- 
tortures, practised by this order, I 
have set out in a former volume — 
Mexico, &c.], and if she should con- 
sent to marry Prince John, she should 
live and remain in the mean time in 
the company of the Duchess of Vi- 
seo." — Grimsha-^v, p. 875 (F.) 

Like a sensible woman, the unfor- 
tunate queen preferred to endure the 
life of a nun of Santa Clara to mar- 
rying a suckling. So also with Cathe- 
rine of Navarre. 

* A great deal of special pleading 
has been practised to ascribe the in- 
stitution of the Inquisition to the 
mistaken piety of Isabella; the true 
motive being a criminal desire to pos- 
sess unlawfully the goods of subjects 
more righteous than herself; like her 



namesake, the wife of Ahab, King of 
Israel — doubtless as much a saint at 
Tyre as Isabella was at Rome. 

" And because the Inquisition 
brought great profit to the king's 
cofi"ers in Castile, of the goods of the 
Jews and Moors, which were revolted 
to their foolish superstitions, it was 
decreed that like proceedings should 
be used against them in Aragon, and 
judges appointed to make definitive 
sentence. One of the sayd commis- 
sioners had like to have been slayne by 
those manner of people on a morning 
in the church of Saragossa, which 
gave them occasion to enquire more 
diligently of those who were faulty, 
wherein choler, greediness of gain, 
and desire to fill the king's cofi'ers 
made them greatly to excell." — Grim- 
SHAW, p. 927 (C.) 



272 HIS APPEARANCE AND EMPLOYMENT. 



an angel of light. If we look at the character of Isabella, 
from any other point of view, we are half inclined to 
adopt the epithet of the Jews and Morescos, " Isabella 
the accursed," but this one bright trait almost tempts us 
to assume the language of her licensed panegyrists, and 
receive her as the " sainted Isabella." We care not what 
her motive was for doing a good act, we recognise only 
her timely aid ; it preserved a noble character, and a still 
more noble enterprise, from sinking into obscurity. 
Columbus pleaded long and earnestly, it is true ; but he 
always had one willing listener, and fortunately that one 
was a Queen of Castile. 

Of the many eloquent discourses written of this world's 
benefactor, few have been more aptly said than the simple 
remark of our quaint chronicler : " Hee [Columbus] was 
a man firm and constant in what he undertook, strong 
and able of travaile, severe and chollerick, bigge of limbs 
and stature, redde-faced and fall of pimples."* The casu- 
alties of a seafaring life had left him upon an island dis- 
tant from his native country of Genoa, where he gained 
a livelihood by making charts of the ocean. This very 
employment, calculating parallels and meridians for his 
charts, must have suggested to a thoughtful mathemati- 
cian the true idea of the earth's form, an idea almost 
evolved by his necessary equations ; so that the story of 
the ship of Biscay first bringing information of the New 
World, was probably one of the pious frauds invented for 
those who could not comprehend the force of a scientific 
argument. 

^ Grimshaw, page 918 (F). 



QUINTANELLO INTRODUCES COLUMBUS. 27^ 



Nor must we forget a just tribute of praise to Alphonso 
Quintanello,^ who first brought Cokimbus to the notice 
of the courtiers, and not either until he had taken him 
home to his own house, and carefully examined his pro- 
posed plan of adventure. Thus it is always : a scheme 
resting on scientific deductions — as we must regard that 
of Columbus — requires a cultivated mind to comprehend 
as well as to invent it. It was the good fortune of our 
hero to find the right patron in the right position, one 
who understood and to whom he could communicate sci- 
entific discoveries, who was, at the same time, relied on 
by those who could not comprehend them. The Cardinal 
of Spain, and divers others of the king's council, on the 
strength of QuintaneUos introduction, brought the humble 
adventurer into the royal presence, " where he was sundry 
times heard discourse, in so much as his speech began to 
please, and the king promised him ayd and employment 
for the discoverie of a new world, so soon as the warres 
of Grenado were ended. In this manner Columbus, full 
of hope and courage, did constantly persue, for the space 
of six whole years, the effects of the kings promise, till 
at last it was performed. "-|- 

It is the custom to portray Isabella as a warm-hearted 
saint, and her husband the complete contrast to that cha- 
racter. These sketches are all copies from one picture, 
drawn at a time when she had established in Castile both 
an inquisition and a censorship, with absolute jurisdiction 
over literature. We must judge princes and statesmen 
by their acts, and not by floating gossip, without reliable 

* Grimshaw, page 918 (E). f Grimshaw, page 918. 

18 



274 VINDICATION OF KING FERDINAND, 



authority. Adopting this standard, we find Ferdinand 
possessed some vague notions of morality, and discover 
that he was influenced by motives unknown to his more 
unscrupulous and ambitious wife. Their conduct in relar 
tion to the affairs of Navarre is strikingly in point. The 
events of his early life seem to have impressed him with 
the importance of royal integrity. A civil war of ten 
years had resulted from his mother's poisoning his elder 
half-brother, the heir to the crown of Aragon. This 
crime had opened to him the succession to that kingdom, 
almost desolated by the war it induced. The protracted 
struggle of the confederate malcontents, which resulted 
in bringing Isabella to the throne, had placed Castile in 
a similar condition,* and Xavarre was even in a worse 
state of demoralization. The Portuguese hostilities were 
scarcely ended,f when the w^ar of the conquest of Gra- 
nada began. All had been engendered by a criminal 
ambition in which he played a secondary part. That 
he put off Columbus from time to time, though listening 
to his arguments with pleasure, was perhaps from his 
belief that the scheme would but open new and distant 
theatres of trouble, and in the end impose fresh burdens 

* It cannot be supposed that I dying, they proposed to crown Isa- 
can give the history of the war of the bella ; but she, more artful, compro- 
malcontents in the compass of a mised for the succession — the nation 
single note. The turbulent nobles, being on the side of the king. The 
who abused the confidence of the treaty with her brother she violated 
good-natured Henry IV., broke out in marrying Ferdinand, 
into open rebellion when he had no f The Portuguese war was the 
more towns and jurisdictions to be- result of an alliance between the de- 
stow upon them ; and took the king's throned Joanna and the King of Por- 
brother, Alphonso, and crowned him tugal. 
king in Henry's lifetime. Alphonso 



DISAPPOINTMENTS BENEFIT COLUMBUS. 275 



upon an exhausted treasury. The Inquisition might 
reUeve the embarrassments of Isabella, for the new Christ- 
ia7is and infidels of Andalusia were rich -, but this newly 
invented instrument for enhancing the revenue could 
avail him little among the poor Moors * and almost inde- 
pendent nobility of Aragon.f In continual straits for 
money to sustain his position, he appears cold and heart- 
less compared with his ambitious, but less calculating 
wife. It was Isabella, therefore, to whom Columbus had 
ultimately to turn for patronage. 

We must pass over the detail of the many rebuffs ex- 
perienced hj Columbus during six long and weary years ; 
trials, perhaps, necessary to discipline him for that great 
success with which Providence designed to crown his 
efforts. The Portuguese had failed to effect any dis- 
covery, even after possessing themselves of all the facts 
that he had collected. This result did not by any means 
discourage him; it simply demonstrated that he had 

* " The emperor commanded the the Jews. They were all rich mer- 

Inquisitors to subject the Moors of chants, while scarcely one [rich mer- 

Aragon to the same laws as those of chant] in five thousand was found 

Valencia, and they were baptized among the Moors. Occupied in the 

iciiJioui resistance^ in 1526 ! cultivation of the ground and the care 

"In 1530, the Pope gave the In- of their flocks, they were always poor. 
quisitor-General the necessary power Sometimes workmen of singular in- 
to absolve all the Moors of Aragon as telligence, talent, and address were 
often as they should relapse into here- found among them." — Llorente 
sy and repent, without inflicting any (abridged), page 41. Philadelphia, 
public penance or infamous punish- 1847. 

ment. The motives expressed in the f I have already referred to the 

bull for this conduct were, that they quasi-independent character of the 

were much sooner converted by nobility of Aragon. These turbulent 

gentle means than severity. It is people submitted with a bad grace to 

natural to inquire, why a different the Inquisition, consequently it was 

policy was adopted with respect to comparatively mild there. 



276 Columbus's voyage. 



given to India too broad a space upon the globe, and 
assigned too little width to the Atlantic. Thus the das- 
tardly attempt to cheat him of his deserved honors, 
proved really beneficial. Even that experimental voyage 
failed to convince him of the greatness of the Atlantic. 
So when at last he proceeded upon his long-contemplated 
course, the difference of the observed and calculated dis- 
tance was such as required all his native constancy of 
character to meet. But the recollection of his six years' 
buffeting, and the promises he had made to the king and 
queen, enabled him to strengthen the minds of his com- 
panions, and to prosecute it to the end. In his circum- 
stances, to return was total ruin. To continue, was by 
no means so surely disastrous. With all the Christian 
virtues Columbus displayed, death itself must have ap- 
peared less dreadful to him than an unsuccessful issue. 

Let us fancy this noble Genoese, night after night, 
pacing his little deck, agitated with all those emotions 
that would have overwhelmed an ordinary man. Success 
would bring renown above the praises of kings, and he, 
perhaps, might be the instrument of conferring the bless- 
ings of his religion on distant tribes of the human race. 
Should he turn back, not himself alone, but the "cause of 
the church" might suffer from his neglect. These were 
the motives that sustained him, week after week, against 
the advice of his officers and the mutinous spirit of his 
men, when they urged him to abandon his enterprise. 
He had ventured his all upon this single cast; success 
alone could justify him, and demonstrate to the world 



THE ATLANTIC CROSSED. 277 



that he was not the mad enthusiast his opponents had so 
often represented, but " a good Christian." 

The voyage was protracted, as is often, even now, the 
case in those zones of the ocean, known to seamen as the 
" horse latitudes." Two months and eight days passed 
before signs of land appeared. How joyfully welcome 
these were to the mariners, the author, who has been 
three long months without such signs, can well appre- 
ciate, if he cannot adequately describe them. But what 
must they have been to Columbus ! Well may he have 
thrown himself upon the earth, and embraced it. We 
almost wonder that reason had not altogether lost its 
dominion, at the accomplishment of this object — the 
greatest success that had ever attended human enter- 
prise. The sailors even forgot the trials and suffer- 
ings they had endured for such an unheard-of length 
in that era ; and these were by no means trifling. 
The vessels were inadequate, their supplies insufficient 
and unsuited to so long a run. Besides whatever other 
evils they suffered, scurvy annoyed the healthy, and aggra- 
vated every ordinary disease. Some were even courting 
death as a relief from suffering, and few expected any 
other termination to their enterprise. To those in the 
company unfamiliar with a seafaring life, this was one of 
peculiar trial. In addition to their other sufferings they 
had to endure the same ennui, that afflicts the traveller 
of our day in the same latitude. There are, it is true, 
occasional diversions furnished by the ocean's inhabitants, 
and the mirage, which a cloudless atmosphere, aided 
perhaps by a heated imagination, locates in the distant 



278 INDIAN POPULATION. 



horizon. Ejes, wearied with the daily routine of vision, 
fancy sometimes the appearance of rivulets and water- 
falls amid green fields and forests, with a background of 
snow-capped mountains. It is a scene more refreshing to 
the imagination, than the reality ever can be to the 
senses. But the relief it furnishes is short-lived indeed : 
while the wanderer gazes the whole is suddenly rolled 
together, as the sun disappears. Then his tantalized 
lips sharply remind him of his allowance of water. If it 
is thus in our days, and under favorable circumstances, 
what were the sufferings of the first voyagers across the 
Atlantic ? We can hardly conceive them. When these 
privations had reached their utmost limit of endurance, 
when discontent amounted almost to mutiny, and the days 
of forbearance were nearly expired, Rodrigo de Triane 
from the lookout shouted — Tierra! A new world was 
in sight. The Atlantic had been crossed. All their suf- 
ferings were turned to joy. 

The India for which Columbus had crossed an unknown 
ocean, he never reached. The discovery of America was 
a miscalculation. A mistake fortunate for the world, and 
exceedingly fortunate for himself. Of this error he re- 
mained in ignorance to the last. He died in the belief 
that he had reached the Orient by his western voyage. 
Hence the name applied to all Spanish America, main 
land as well as islands — West India. The inhabitants of 
the islands of this new India were more degraded even 
than the northern savages ; they resembled the almost 
naked islanders of the South Seas, and failed not to excite 
the disgust of the Spanish adventurers. As the South 



ENSLAVEMENT OF THE INDIANS. 279 



Sea inhabitants, they lived on the almost spontaneous 
productions of the tropics. They were but a feeble folk, 
at bestj and sparsely scattered over a large territory. As 
among other savages, of their offspring barely enough 
survived parental neglect to supply the original stock, 
and the constant drain of intestine war. Such a popula- 
tion may increase in numbers, as we have seen, but only 
after they have ceased to be savages. Were we to rate 
the whole population of the West India islands at one 
hundred thousand souls, at the time of their discovery, 
those familiar with Indian characteristics would call the 
estimate extravagant; and so it would be, fifty thousand 
being nearer the reality — perhaps more than the actual 
number. 

Europeans, it will be recollected, came in contact with 
these islanders nearly one hundred years before either 
Canada or New England was settled. They found them, 
too, a feebler race than the aborigines of the adjacent 
continent. Spanish cruelty is assigned as the cause of 
their extinction. But that cannot be ; for the Hurons no 
less rapidly melted away under the excessive kindness of 
the French. The intense excitement created in Spain, 
in consequence of the cruelties charged to have been 
inflicted on a few Indians in these distant islands, is 
strange to notice ; for at the same time the most shock- 
ing enormities were daily perpetrated unchallenged upon 
the wealthy Morescos at home. The extermination of a 
million or two of educated and refined Moors in Spain 
was as nothing. in comparison to the enslavement of a 



280 



ORIGIN OF THE CONTROVERSY. 



thousand or two savages in the West Indies !* And at 
this very time besides, kidnapped Africans were suffering 
equally on the same island, and without exciting either 
any commiseration ! The real cause of this apparent 
shock to the moral sense must be sought in the rivalries 
of the Dominicans and Franciscans, and in the angry 
passions of those who ranged themselves under their 
respective banners. The Dominicans,*|' whose duty it was 
to preach the extermination of all heretics, by fire and 
sword, then upheld the cause of humanity, but to Indians 
only. While the Franciscans — holding the popular doc- 



* '• An amnesty was granted to 
the Moors, on condition that they 
came to solicit it ; and many took ad- 
vantage of the permission. To pre- 
vent emigration, the king remitted 
the penalty of confiscation ; but the 
Inquisitors, by means of the impene- 
trable secrecy which it always pre- 
served, rendered the benevolent in- 
tentions of the sovereign of no avail. 
They did not publish the briefs of 
indulgence granted by the Court of 
Rome, knowing that a great number of 
the relapsed would take advantage of 
them. These people, not being aware 
of their privileges, were condemned 
and burnt. These examples of cruelty 
increased the hatred of the Moors for 
this sanguinary tribunal, and were 
the cause of many seditions, which, 
in 1609, led to the entire expulsion 
of the Moors to the number of one 
million of souls ; so that, in the space 
of one hundred and thirty-nine years, 
the Inquisition depi-ived Spain of 
three millions of inhabitants — Jews, 
Mores, and Moors." — Llorente's 



History of the Inquisition, translated 
and abridged, page 42. Philadelphia, 
1847. 

f " Dominick, a canon of Osma, 
relying not much upon disputations 
and reasons, persuaded all princes 
and their subjects to arms, as being 
the most expeditious means [for extir- 
pating the Aibigenses] ; for the which 
he was put into the catalogue of 
saints. It was he which brought in 
the order of Preaching Friars." — 
Grimshaw, page 345. 

" St. Dominic also established an 
order for laymen. This order has 
been designated as the Third Order 
of Penitents ; but most commonly as 
the Militia of Christ, because those 
who were members of it fought 
against heretics and assisted the In- 
quisitors in the exercise of their func- 
tions, they were considered as part 
of the Inquisitorial family, and on 
that account bore the name of Fami- 
liars." — Llorente (abridged), page 
13. 



EFFECT OF SLAYERT ON THE INDIANS. 281 



trine of the immaculate conception, which the Domini- 
cans denied — assumed the defence of the colonists. So 
that " what the long pipes proposed the short pipes op- 
posed," is the probable solution of the terrible tempest 
which this controversy excited. And so the Hieronomite 
gentlemen,* who were appointed to investigate the affair, 
seemed to consider it. The Dominicans got decidedly the 
advantage, however, by enlisting on their side the good 
but blindly-zealous Las Casas. 

But whatever the motive of this heated controversy, 
the Indians of the main land, who escaped the first stage 
of servitude, were the real gainers by it. By the new 
laws, to which this discussion gave rise, their burdens 
were materially lightened, yet, fortunately for them, they 
were still compelled to labor. In their new, they were more 
prolific than in their savage state ; and their children were 
better cared for. From that time we are to date an 
increase of the aboriginal population of Spanish America, 
an increase that has been steadily progressing to the pre- 
sent time. It is even supplanting the white and mon- 
grel races, and now doubtless outnumbering the abori- 
ginals of the era of Columbus. To be a great reformer, 
a man must be possessed of but one idea — such a man 
was Las Casas. As an abolitionist, there are none in our 

* This is an order of monks, con- conveys a Saxon idea ; and so is 

sisting almost entirely of gentlemen, cleanliness. But a devotee is almost 

Their number is, of course, limited ; always filthy in his person, as he is 

and have the credit, which the un- in his conceptions. To believe half 

■washed monks never had, of being their own people say of them, would 

really what they profess to be — gen- degrade humanity. " Satan's militia" 

tlemen and Christians. would seem to express the idea of 

Godliness is a Saxon word, and those they oppressed. 



282 COLUMBUS RETURNS SUCCESSFUL. 



day equal to him in fiery denunciations, or the reckless 
use of the superlative and hyperbolical. From his forty 
millions of Indians destroyed by the cruelty of the Span- 
iards, we must deduct the trifling sum of thirty-nine, 
at least ! There never probably existed forty millions 
of savage races at one time on our globe. The acts he 
himself professes to have witnessed we cannot doubt. 
But those which he repeats on the authority of others, 
we may well hesitate to believe, considering how sadly 
the whole Spanish world is given to the magniloquent 
So much for this good man. 

We cannot resist an inclination to return and follow 
Columbus on his homeward voyage — to the scene of his 
triumphal entry into the presence of the majesty of Spain. 
He had left it an adventurer. At his return he was more 
than the equal of royalty. He brought assured tidings 
of a new world, whose nations were yet to rise and bless 
him; and of a continent abounding in precious metals. 
The cold and calculating Ferdinand received him gra- 
ciously, the queen in ecstasies, while popular ovations 
placed him in the rank of heroes. But in the midst of 
all this demonstration of joy by a proverbially treacherous 
nation, the noble Genoese bore his laurels with the same 
dignified gentleness, that had characterized him in times 
of bitterest disappointment. His was a mind, that not 
only rose above discomfitures, it could not be conquered 
by success. Again he sets forth for the new world, loaded 
with royal favors, the adulation of courtiers, and the 
shouts of the multitude ; but to return a prisoner, and in 
irons. Such are the uncertainties of royal favor, when 



TRACES OF CIVILIZATION DISCOVERED. 283 



seconded by the applause of the crowd. Again and again 
he repeats his voyage, but circumstances were changed. 
There were no new worlds to discover. From necessity, 
he sank into the humble surveyor of an unknown coast. 
If his son Diego was more fortunate, he had married into 
the royal family, and obtained as dowry, rather than as an 
inheritance, the government of the island of San Domingo, 
to which Cuba was made subordinate. 

Other adventurers followed in the path of the Admiral. 
Cuba was conquered and settled by Velasques, then a lieu- 
tenant of Diego. The Spanish main was ravished by par- 
ties in quest of Indian slaves. Upon the Isthmus an estab- 
lishment had been formed at Nomhre-de-Dios or Darien. 
Bilboa had already discovered the South Sea, or Pacific. 
At this point in the drama of American civilization — 1517 
— a second act opens. A new party of adventurers, in 
three small vessels, sailed out of the Havana, under the 
command of Cordova. They commit themselves to the 
guidance of Providence on an unknown sea, and by 
chance discover land at Cape Catouche, where a Phoe- 
nician station had, doubtless, been maintained three 
thousand years before, as was evident from the adjacent 
chapels now in ruins. The sight of these products of 
a civilized race caused great astonishment to our voyagers, 
as it was the first time since the discovery of America, 
that any such traces had been found on this continent. 
Though totally unqualified to determine the origin of 
the structures before them, the first impression of 
these adventurers has passed for a demonstration 
among the learned. It has been universally received 



284 TRACES OF CIVILIZATION DISCOVERED. 



from that day as a correct solution of the great 
problem of American archoBology; as proof that struc- 
tures exhibiting the highest grade of art were the work 
of a race htirdly superior to South Sea islanders ! Subse- 
quent discovery, and whatever other evidence has been 
reached, has been warped to conform to this foregone 
conclusion. As these adventurers beheld upon the walls 
of deserted temples the hloody Tia7id,^ and the further re- 
presentation of priests in the act of offering infants to the 
cross and to the mask of Saturn,-]- they at once concluded 
them to be the emblems of human sacrifices actually 
offered by the existing race, whose cabins were located 
near the ruins. Once possessed of this idea, the Spaniards 
found no difficulty in alleging facts to suit their theory. 
Such is the origin of those blunders into which American 
antiquarians have fallen; they have adopted as entire 
and undisputed facts the hasty conclusions of ignorant 
men! 

* " Over the cavity left in the the image of the departed inhabitants 

mortar by the removal of the stone, hovering about the building." — Ste- 

were two conspicuous marks, which phens's Yucatan, vol. I., page 177. 

afterwards stared us in the face in all The reader can see at once, that 

the ruined buildings of the country, this " bloody hand" is more likely to 

They were the prints of a red hand, have been stamped upon these an- 

with the thumb and fingers extended cient ruins by savages than by the 

— not drawn or painted, but stamped original builders. The same red paint 

by the living hand, the pressure of which they use upon their own faces, 

the palm upon the stone. He who in time of war, would be amply suffi- 

made it had stood before it alive, as cient for the purpose, 

we did, and pressed his hand, moist- f The allegorical ornaments at- 

ened by red paint, hard against the tached to the heads and to the nose 

stone. The seams and creases of the of one of these infants are, of course, 

palm were clear and distinct in the meaningless to us. It would require 

impression. There was something a familiarity with the mythology of 

lifelike about it that waked up ex- this lost race to explain them, 
citing thoughts, and almost presented 



BUILDERS OF THE TEMPLES. 285 



That the Yucateco Indians were savages is clearly 
evident from the description of Diaz himself, who says — 
" These Indians wore a kind of cloak made of cotton and a 
small sort of apron, which hung from their hips half-way 
down to the knee, which they termed mattatesj^ We found 
them more intelligent than the Indians of Cuba, where 
only the women wore a similar species of apron made of 
cotton, which hangs down over their thighs." A strange 
reason for calling them more intelligent ! These are the 
people to whom is attributed the building of such mag- 
nificent structures as the temples of Copan, Palenque, 
Uxmal, &c. ! Besides idols " made of clay," Diaz pro- 
fesses to have found " wooden boxes, containing other of 
their gods with hellish faces, several small shells, some 
ornaments, three crowns, and other trinkets, some in the 
shape of fish, others in the shape of ducks, all worked out 
of an inferior sort of gold ! Seeing all this, the gold, and 
the good architectural style of the temj)les, we felt over- 
joyed at the discovery of the country."-]* This inferior 
sort of gold may have been iron pyrites wrought into 
imaginary resemblances to the forms mentioned above. 
As for gold in Yucatan, that is entirely out of the 
question, as it is exclusively a limestone formation. For 
the idols "made of clay" there is more difficulty in 
accounting, than even the carved statues. The author 
has personally examined a very large number. They 
appear all of one type, to have had an allegorical charac- 
ter,J and to be very ancient. With much hesitation we 

* Bernal Diaz, voL I., page 4. % The author first came in con- 

t Ibid., voL I., page 5. tact with this peculiar species of idola- 



286 



BUILDERS OF THE TEMPLES. 



have ventured a theory that they are the produc- 
tion of a race, intervening between the civihzed builders 
of the temples, and the savages who now crouch in their 
shadow. There are among them females with allegorical 
ornaments, tortoises, crocodiles, and serpents with human 
heads, and images formed of strange combinations with 
parts of different animals, seeniing to indicate the 
work of a people in a transition state. Fourteen days' 
sail further to the westward brought our voyagers to 
other "edifices which were strongly built of stone and 
lime, and had otherwise a good appearance. [Phoenician 
chapels or small temples on truncated pyramids.] These 
were temples, the walls of which were covered with 
figures representing snakes, and all manner of gods. 



try, at the city of Mexico. His first 
impression, on seeing them, was to 
conclude that they were the work of 
the Aztecs ; and that the religion of 
those Indians was allegorical. But 
subsequent investigation leads to the 
conclusion, that it is the relic of an 
older race. The specimens to be found 
at the city of Mexico, were doubtless 
brought from these ruined chapels 
of the Phoenicians. The reason why 
the Inquisitors would order them to 
be thrown into the gutter, is manifest 
— the fear that they might recall 
pagan ideas to thelndians. 

" My landlord had two boxes of 
such images, collected when they 
were cleaning out one of the old city 
canals. By way of parlor ornaments, 
we had an Aztec god of baked earth. 
He was sitting in a chair ; around his 
navel was coiled a serpent ; his right 



hand rested upon the head of another 
serpent. This, according to the laws 
of interpreting allegories, we should 
understand to signify that the god 
had been renowned for his wisdom ; 
that with the wisdom of the serpent 
he had executed judgment ; and that 
his meditations were the profundity 
of wisdom. And yet this allegorical 
worship, defective as it may have 
been, was superseded by the adora- 
tion of a child's doll — one that had 
very possibly been worn out and 
thrown from a nursery, and perhaps 
picked up by some passing monk — 
was made the goddess of New Spain, 
and clothed with three petticoats — one 
adorned with pearls, one with rubies, 
and one with diamonds, at an esti- 
mated cost of 13,000,000. Which was 
the least objectionable superstition ?" 
— Mexico and its Religion, page 118. 



IDEA OF INDIAN" CIVILIZATION. 287 



Round a species of altar we perceived fresh spots of 
blood.* On some of the [representations of] idols were 
figures like crosses [vide AsMerotli and Tier emhlem,'] with 
other paintings representing groups of Indians."']' Making 
a little allowance for the want of intelligence in these 
discoverers, there is little difficulty in identifying the 
above description with the cross-scene portrayed on the 
walls of Palenque. "All this astonished us greatly, as 
we had neither seen nor heard of such things before."-]* 

The mistake or misrepresentation of these people was 
the foundation of that impression which now went 
abroad, bearing that this peninsula was not only inhabited 
by civilized Indians, accustomed to human sacrifice, but 
abounded also in mines of gold — the idea that gold might 
be produced from ores was not then altogether exploded. 
With due allowance for SjDanish exaggeration, and the 
inducements to misrepresent, it may still be safely 
assumed that at the time of the discovery of Yucatan, 
ruins of temples abounded in what are now its more 
settled portions. The supply of water always to be found 
near these ruins was an attraction, not only for savages 
to build their cabins near them, but also for those 
Castilians, who thought it a merit with heaven that they 
converted heathen temples into materials for perpetuating 
their own superstition. This is most probably the 
foundation too of the fabled Mexican civilization, idolatry. 



* The reader will find n&- diffi- blood," most probably meant nothing 

oulty in identifying the scenes of Pa- more than the blood-red paint of the 

lenque in these deserted chapels, scat- Indians, 

tered along the coast. " Spots of f Lockhart's Diaz, vol. I., page 7. 



288 



APOLOGY FOR RETURNING. 



and human sacrifice. Even falsehood must have some- 
what out of which to manufacture details. 

The -psiYty continued coasting westwardly as far as 
Potonchan, or Baliia de mala Pelea* where it was resolved 
to abandon the further prosecution of the voyage, and 
return to Cuba. The apology for this step is the allega- 
tion of a terrible discomfiture they received at the hands 
of the savages, which is thus described : " As soon as 
daylight had fully broken forth we perceived more troops 
of armed natives moving towards the coast with flying 
colors. They divided themselves into different bodies, 
surrounded us on all sides, and commenced pouring forth 
such showers of arrows, lances, and stones, that more than 
eighty men were wounded at the first onset ! We dealt 
many a good thrust and blow amongst them, keeping up 



* "Bahia de la Mala Pelea. — 
The mouth of this river forms part of 
the bay, which Hernandez de Cor- 
dova and his companions called, vrith 
much propriety, de la Mala Pelea, 
vrhere they suffered so severe a defeat 
from the natives in March, 1517, 
when only one escaped unwounded, 
the captain himself being a victim of 
the wounds he there received. . . . 
It gained European celebrity at an- 
other time, as well the bay as the 
adjacent coast, from the forests of 
tinted wood which formerly abounded 
on its banks, and the neighboring 
shore. To-day, owing to the prodigal 
waste with which we have abused 
this gift of nature, it is found only in 
the interior of the country. This 
wood is solid, more firm, and espe- 
cially more abundant in tints, than 



that which we find to the leeward of 
Campeachy, much more than that of 
Honduras. It began to be cut at an 
early period, when the service it was 
destined to yield to the arts was un- 
known. [It was thus brought into 
notice.] An English corsair, from 
Jamaica, in cruising upon this coast, 
captured a vessel laden with a cargo 
of this unappreciated wood. It being 
unfit for combustion, he took it to 
London, because he was bound there 
to arm the vessel for privateering. 
When discharged, the cargo, to his 
surprise, sold for a great price. 
Stimulated with this success, a mul- 
titude of other corsairs acquired the 
custom of visiting this river," &c. — 
Boletin de la Sociedad Mexicana de 
Geografia y Estadistica, page 248. 



APOLOGr FOR RETURNING. 289 



at the same time an incessant fire with our muskets and 
cross-bows; for while some loaded, others fired." Per- 
ceiving how closely they were hemmed in by the enemy, 
that the whole of them were wounded, many shot through 
the neck, " and more than fifty of our men killed !" the 
Spaniards determined to cut their way through the 
enemies' ranks and make for the boats, which fortunately 
lay on the coast near at hand. This was successfully 
accomplished. " At that moment you should have heard 
the whizzing of their arrows, the horrible yell they set 
up, and how the Indians provoked each other to combat, 
at the same time making desperate thrusts with their 
lances. After we had gained our vessel we found that 
fifty-seven of our men were missing, and five died of 
their wounds. The battle lasted little more than half 
an hour !"* The reader will perceive that we have 
not in the slightest degree overstated the recklessness 
of Spanish authors in the use of numerals, when they 
have a purpose to accomplish. Here it was necessary to 
fabricate an apology which should justify the abandoning 
of a voyage of discovery, in the full tide of success. 
Accordingly Bernal Diaz in his "history" kills fifty-seven 
men and wounds all the rest of the Spaniards in a 
fair stand-up fight with savages, who had never before 
heard the sound of a musket ! Cortez' famous battle at 
Tobasco with "twelve thousand Indians," according to 
this same author had none killed, and but fourteen 
wounded,f though it was a threefold battle, including a 
landing in the face of the enemy on a muddy shore, and 

* Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 11. f md., page 71. 

19 



290 EFFECT OF THE LAST DISCOVERIES. 



the successful carrying of two barricades of felled trees. 
The Indians themselves had but eighteen killed ! 

Wounded, disheartened, and without water, yet the 
party had no difficulty in " fetching" the Gulf-stream, and 
in four days reaching Florida, where they found both an 
enemy and a supply of water. Afterwards they sailed to 
Matanzas, and ultimately reached the Havana. Those 
of the expedition, who got safely back, found some conso- 
lation for their sufferings in the privilege awarded them 
of telling marvellous tales of the riches and civilization 
of the new land they had discovered ; the importance of 
each, in his respective circle, depending perhaps on the 
magnitude of his narrative. " Our account of the houses 
in the newly discovered country, built of stone and lime, 
had spread a vast idea of its riches, added to which the 
Indian Melchorego had given us to understand by signs 
that it abounded in gold mines."* All this created a 
great desire among the inhabitants and soldiers through- 
out the island, w^ho possessed no commendaries of Indians, 
to go in quest of such a rich country ; consequently, in a. 
very short time, another body of two hundred and twenty 
volunteers furnished themselves with an outfit, and soon 
were ready for the second expedition under Grijalva. It 
need not be added, the shaping of the report of the 
discoveries in Yucatan was in the hands of those, who 
were anxious to entice others to embark in a new adven- 
ture. Like the volatile riches of a gold-quartz vein, w^hose 
value expands exactly in proportion to the difficulty 
experienced in persuading capitalists to interest them- 

* Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 19. 



DISCREPANCIES IN NARRATORS. 291 



selves in the adventure, in the most exaggerated form 
the news was carried to Europe. Thus the minds of men 
were prepared for the romance growing out of the 
expedition of Grijalva, without making any deductions 
from them, and also for the report of the miraculous 
adventures of Cortez, which succeeded. "We have already 
stated why there could not possibly be any gold in 
Yucatan — from its geological formation. But how much 
there was, if any, among the people, that had passed from 
tribe to tribe until it reached this coast, it is hard to 
determine. There may have been enough in the form of 
rude trinkets to give some color to the statement of its 
mineral riches. 

It was, according to the chaplain of Grijalva,* the 1st 
day of March, 1518, but according to Bernal Diaz, the 
5th day of April, that, all things being ready in the har- 
bor of Matanzas for the sailing of the expedition, and 
the hour of departure fixed, the whole party attended 
mass with fervent devotion, and immediately afterwards 
weighed anchor. On the 4th of March, according to the 
priest, the expedition came in sight of a tower upon a 
promontory, opposite Cozumel. According to Diaz, they 
were ten days in making Cape San Antonio, and eight 
more in reaching Cozumel Island ; having been carried a 
little to the south by the currents, but more probably by 
some error in the ship's reckoning. According to the 



* The discrepancy here may be as it was published first at Paris, in 

owing to the circumstance of the 1848, But after all, it is not greater 

writer of Bernal Diaz not having had than others we constantly meet with 

access to the journal of this chaplain, among standard Spanish authors. 



292 ALLEGATION OF INDIAN IDOLATRY. 



cliaplain, they now sailed into the channel between 
Cozumel* and the main land of Yucatan, and coasted 
Cozumel Island; where, besides the tower which they 
first saw on approaching the coast, they discovered four- 
teen more. A canoe from the shore came to them, in 
which was a chief, who said he would consider it a great 
honor to receive a visit from the party at his village. 
According to Diaz, the people fled at the approach of 
the Spaniards, nor could any inducement they held out 
prevail on them to return to their homes, or the chief to 
visit the Spaniards ; and thus, unsuccessful in their efforts 
to come to an understanding with the natives, they sailed 
away, taking with them an Indian woman of Jamaica, 
who, with ten others, had been wrecked on that island. 

The chaplain further says, the commandant mounted 
a tower on this island with the standard-bearer, unfurled 
the flag, and took possession in the name of the king, 
planting the standard upon one of the faQades of the 
tower. The ascent to this tower was by eighteen steps ; 
the base was very massive, one hundred and eighty feet 
in circumference. " Within were figures, bones, and 
idols that they adored [?]. From these marks we sup- 
posed that they were idolaters" [a poor reason]. Then 
an old Indian came with a pot or vase of odoriferous per- 
fumes, which the chaplain supposed him burning before 
the idols — the incense was, more probably, designed as 
an honor to the visitors ; for Diaz-j* tell us, the Indians at 
the river Tobasco, " brought pans filled with red-hot 

* Stephens's Yucatan, vol. II., f Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 22. 
page 367. 



ISLAND OF COZUMEL. 293 



embers, on which they strewed incense [copal ?] and per- 
fumed us all." Our chaplain, continuing his narrative, 
says, the old Indian, as he burned the incense, sang in a 
loud voice a song which was always in the same tone : 
" We supposed that he was invoking his idols." Had he 
known the language, he would probably have understood 
what it really was — a complimentary welcome to the 
pale-faces. On so shallow a foundation as this, rests the 
allegation of Indian idolatry ! 

Diaz informs us that the island contained three poor 
villages,* of which the one whose inhabitants fled at the 
approach of Grijalva was the largest, the two smaller 
were situated on a promontory, at a distance of nearly 
six miles. The chaplain states that, the Indians having 
left them alone at the temple mentioned, they entered the 
village, where all the houses were built of stone. " Among 
others, they saw five very well-made houses commanded 
by small towers. The hase of these edifices is very large 
and massive ; the building is very small at the top. They 
appeared to have been built a long time, but there are 
also modern ones, "f That village, as he calls it, was 
paved with concave stones. The streets, elevated at the 
sides, descend, declining towards the middle, which was 
paved entirely with large stones. To judge by the edi- 
fices and houses, he says, these Indians appear to be very 
ingenious ; and if we had a number of recent edifices we 
should have thought that these buildings were the works 
of the Spaniards ! J He states, further, that " we pene- 

* Lockhart's Bernal Diaz, vol. I., % Were not these the Phoenician 
page 32. " houses of the high-places V 

•f STEPHEKs'sFMcatow, vol. II., p. 369. ' 



294 RUINS ON COZUMEL ISLAND. 



trated, to the number of ten men, three or four miles into 
the interior. There we saw edifices and habitations, 
separated one from another, and very well constructed." 
So far as these contradictory witnesses agree, and are sub- 
stantially confirmed by modern research, we are bound 
to believe them. Let us see, then, how much we may 
adopt of their statements. 

Human sacrifice is not now in discussion, for that idea 
appears not yet to have occurred to either party. With 
Diaz it was not good policy to suggest it, lest the ques- 
tion should naturally arise, why did Cortez pass over 
these wicked pagans to make war only on the Aztecs ? 
It is simply inferred that the Indians are idolaters, 
because they followed their custom of burning copal in 
honor of their guests, in a chamber of a ruined temple, 
where there were idols still remaining ! The contradic- 
tion between them, in relation to villages on the island, 
we can easily reconcile, by supposing those referred to by 
Bernal Diaz to be villages of huts constructed by Indians, 
while that of the chaplain may refer to a collection of 
antique edifices similar to those at Uxmal. As to the 
modern buildings among them, a thatch placed over a 
chamber in these ruins, convenient for a dwelhng, would 
give to it that appearance. Stephens informs us,* that 
at the time of his visit the whole island was deserted, 
and overgrown with trees ; except along the shore, or 
within the clearing around a solitary hut, it was impossi- 
ble to move in any direction without cutting a path. He 
identifies the tower visited by the chaplain. It stands 

* Yucatan, vol. II., page 372. 



RUINS ON COZUMEL ISLAND. 295 



on a terrace, and has steps on all four of its sides. The 
building measures sixteen feet square. The exterior is 
of plain stone, but was once formerly stuccoed and 
painted, traces of which are still visible. South-south- 
east of this, near an opposite angle, in the clearing, and 
five or six hundred feet from the sea, stands another 
building, raised upon a terrace, consisting of a single 
apartment, twenty feet by six feet ten inches deep, 
having two doorways, and a back wall seven feet thick. 
The height is ten feet, the arch is triangular, and on the 
walls are the remains of painting. The above structures, 
and all similar ones along this coast, the reader will have 
no difficulty in recognising as ruined Phoenician chapels, 
used also for look-out stations. Near these ruins are the 
remains of a large Eomish church, two hundred feet in 
length by sixty in breadth, built probably from materials 
taken from more ancient ruins, but now itself a ruin, 
deserted from the time the bucaneers drove the Spaniards 
from this coast. In conclusion, it may be added, the 
island is thirty-six miles long by six miles wide. The 
Indian insurrection has led to its re-occupation. It now 
contains a population of three hundred and fifty * inhabit- 

* " The island of Cozumel, distant ciently potable, abounding in honey 
from this [Ascension] Bay thirty and mountain wax, not wanting iu 
leagues, is the first point to the north- precious woods, such as ebony, ma- 
east that fixes the attention on this hogany, and above all the holy wood, 
silent and unexplored coast, distant or guayacan. It was famous, in hea- 
five leagues from the main land, then times, for its places of adoration 
of easy navigation, notwithstanding [adotorios) whose ruins even now ex- 
the strong currents. It is fifteen ist. . . . The abandonment of this 
leagues in length by five in breadth, island ought to be attributed to the 
and good anchorage, free from reefs dispersion which the Maya race has 
on the south, possessing water suffi- sufiered on the continent, leaving 



296 BATTLE OF COMPOTON. 



ants. This is all that probably ever will be known of 
the famous island of Cozumel, until its ancient history 
shall be revealed. Let us now follow Grijalva in his sur- 
vey of the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. 

The next stopping-place of the expedition was Compo- 
ton, where they suffered severely from an assault from 
the natives. They found the Indians drawn up in order 
to attack them, with their faces painted black and white, 
and well armed, according to their custom. When the 
Spaniards got near enough, the Indians let fly such a 
shower of arrows and lances that the half of the men 
were speedily wounded. As soon, however, as they got 
on shore, they " gave them an evil return" with, match- 
locks and sabres. Nothing daunted by this, the Indians 
selected each a man, whom they particularly aimed at 
with their arrows, but the Spaniards had taken the pre- 
caution to put on cotton cuirasses, which partially shielded 
them. " We stayed four days at this place," says Diaz, 
" and I shall never forget it, on account of the immense- 
sized locusts which we saw there. It was a stony spot 
on which the battle took place, and these creatures, while 
it lasted, kept continually flying in our faces, and as, at 
the same moment, we were greeted by a shower of arrows 



solitary that colony in the sea, that from the sanguinary furor of the 

it might have been the work of a con- dominant aborigines, a new village 

queror, which has been forgotten, and of San Martin Cozmell [has sprung 

only visited by some antiquary, or by up, which] numbers to-day a popula- 

some humble laborer. Not until our tion of three hundred and fifty inhab- 

unfortunate days has it recovered any itants, established wdth dwellings and 

part of its celebrity. By offering, if gardens [sembradios.] — Boletin de la 

not a commodious at least a secure Sociedad Mexicana de Geog. y Esta- 

asylum to many of our fugitive race, disiica, torn. III., No. 5, page 243. 



ANTIQUE TEMPLES. 297 



from tlie enemy, we also mistook these locusts for arrows. 
But as soon as we discovered our mistake, we deceived 
ourselves in another more direful way, for we mistook 
arrows for locusts, and discontinued to shield ourselves 
against them" ! * Clearly, then, if Bernal Diaz is worthy 
of credit, we have an exact measure of the force of an 
Indian arrow when striking an enemy, viz., equal to the 
force of a locust flying in their faces ! They next land 
upon the shore of Terminus Bay, where they find no 
inhabitants, but temples built of stone and lime, "full 
of idols, made of wood and clay, with other figures 
[statues and paintings on the walls?] sometimes repre- 
senting women, sometimes serpents, also horns of various 
kinds of wild animals."-]- In the same author's next 
paragraph we have the important admission that in the 
time of Grijalva the district was uninhabited, completely 
establishing our position that the connection of the Indians 
with these Phoenician ruins was merely accidental. " We 
had, however, deceived ourselves in one thing, the dis- 
trict being quite uninhabited. The temples, most proba- 
bly, belonged to merchants and hunters who, on their 
journeys, ran into this harbor, and there made their 
sacrifices."'^ 

Before bidding adieu to this remarkable peninsula a 
second time, we cannot forbear dwelling for a moment 
on the mystery that now envelops that extinct race of 
civilized men, who made it the seat of their empire ages 
before the beginning of our profane history. These ruins 

* Bernal Diaz, toI. I., page 23 ; f Bernal Diaz, vol. I,, page 24. 
Ibid., p. 25. 



298 



EXTINCT RACE OF YUCATAN. 



have not been preserved so well as those of Egypt, as 
they have had to contend with a more humid climate, 
and a ranker vegetation. Their pyramidal structures 
were not so large as those of Central America, nor so high 
as those of Egypt ; but ruins of magnificent works are more 
numerous here than in either of the others. Their reser- 
voirs and artificial lakes, with other skilful arrangements 
to insure a supply a water in times of drought, are worthy 
of comparison with the best enterprises of modern times, 
in that direction. The size and number of these econo- 
mic works,* the vastness and magnitude of the temples, 
convey to us an approximate idea of the density and 
wealth of that ancient people, who, in ages long since for- 



* It was in 1836, that Senor Trego, 
conceiving tlie idea that the aguadas, 
or ponds, of Yucatan were filled up 
with artificial lakes or reservoirs of 
the ancients, he obtained the permis- 
sion of government and the assist- 
ance of the Haciendors for leagues 
around, and commenced his experi- 
ments at the rancho of Voyaxche ; 
for a portion of the time he had fif- 
teen hundred Indians employed. 

"On cleaning out the mud," says 
Stephens [Yucatan, vol. II., page 
211), "he found an artificial bot- 
tom of large, flat stones. These were 
laid upon each other in this form, 



r^ 



I 



and the interstices were filled with 
clay, of red and brown color, of a dif- 
ferent character from any in the 
neighborhood. The stones were many 
layers deep, and he did not go down 
to the bottom lest by some accident 



the foundation should be injured, and 
the fault be imputed to him. Near 
the centre, in places which he indi- 
cated, he discovered four ancient 
wells. These were five feet in diame- 
ter, faced with smooth stone, not 
covered with cement, eight yards 
deep, and at the time of the discovery 
were also filled with mud. And be- 
sides these, he found along the mar- 
gin four hundred pits, into which the 
water filtered, and which, with the 
wells, were intended to furnish a sup- 
ply when the aguada should be 
dry." The next year being one of 
scarcity, more than a thousand horses 
and mules came to this aguada, with 
barrels on their backs, and carried 
away water, some from a distance of 
eighteen miles. Such were the agua- 
das of the ancient population of this 
peninsula, now covered with mud 
and ruins. 



CASTILIANS OVERTURN ANTIQUE STATUES. 299 



gotten, occupied this peninsula. Their antiquity was not 
so great as that of Central America, but they must have 
enjoyed a greater prosperity. They had a more salu- 
brious climate, and a better position in relation to the 
Eastern Continent — as they had on one side the trade- 
wind, and on the other the Gulf-stream, to assist them 
in their ocean voyages. Providence preserved a goodly 
memorial of their fallen grandeur, until the ruthless 
Castilian came and overturned every one of their remain- 
ing statues, defaced their paintings and carved work; 
and wrought even the very stones of the ruins into new 
temples to a new madonna, and queen of their own super- 
stition. Providence seems to have led the Spaniard 
to this peninsula, to show him the prototype of his own 
religion, and that he might witness the devastation it 
had wrought thousands of years before. But the lesson 
was unheeded ; he obstinately followed his own way to 
the same bitter end. Again the Indian element is in the 
ascendant. The Great Spirit is once more adored, and 
copal is burned at their festivals; whilst strangely enough, 
the cross and the image of the Virgin still retain their 
position, as amulets and talismans. As they formerly 
built their rude cabins beside deserted Phoenician temples, 
so now they are erected beside the holy places of the 
Spaniards. The decree of extermination has gone forth, 
though it has not yet been fully executed. 

Our voyagers had now passed beyond the limits of 
Yucatan, and entered the river Tobasco. There they 
made preparations for a new engagement with the In- 
dians ; but so disastrous a contingency was avoided hy 



300 GOLD PICTURE WRITINGS. 



timely negotiation. Soon after they resumed their voy- 
age ; and coasting the shore of the Gulf of Mexico, pass- 
ed the mouth of the river Tonola or San Antonio, and 
the Guatsicualco, where they came in sight of the snow- 
capped Orizaba. Finally they landed at the mouth of 
the Bandera, or Banner River, where they bartered glass 
beads and other trinkets, for fifteen hundred dollars'* 
worth of gold dust. This trade might have proved ex- 
ceedingly lucrative, had the Spaniards been satisfied with 
the profits of such unequal exchanges. But in the very 
next expedition, having killed the bird that laid the 
golden egg, we hear no more of Mexican gold washings. 
Here we have the first notice of information being sent, 
by means of "painted figures," such as savages would 
doubtless make on felt or cloth of agave, or maguey. Out 
of this Indian method of communicating intelligence, has 
grown the monstrous fabric of Aztec picture writings — a 
species of records that never had existence, except in 
the fruitful imaginations of literary gentlemen, and the 
famous impostor, the Monk Pietro. Here Grijalva was 
again fumigated with copal. Having remained at this 

* Here we have another instance portunity for a trade would occur, 

of the utter recklessness with which there not being any city or large town 

Spanish authors use numerals. In the in the vicinity. Yet this amount is 

edition of Diaz, which I am using, afterwards referred to, a few pages 

the value of the gold dust, obtained further on in the same edition, as 

at this point, is set down at |1500, $16,000 (page 83), and finally we are 

which, from my personal knowledge, told that the total yield of the voy- 

I should say was a large sum to ob- age was $20,000, though it does not 

tain from savages in only six days' appear that afterwards they had any 

time, when they had no previous no- opportunity for further exchange, 
tice or reason to expect that this op- 



HUMAN SACRIFICE. 301 



spot six days, they again pursued their voyage, and soon 
arrived at the island of Sacrificios. 

It is at this island we have the first intimation that the 
Indians were addicted to human sacrifice. This charge 
is made during the voyage of Grijalva. Neither in the 
former voyage nor in the present one, along the whole 
coast of Yucatan and Tobasco, had any such charge been 
brought. It is idle to say the author of Bernal Diaz is 
not very scrupulous, and that such a fabrication as this 
would aid his ulterior purpose. The very name of the 
island is a sufiicient refutation of such an idea. The true 
explanation is to be found in the native cruelty of all 
savages, and in the tortures they often inflict on their 
prisoners of war. The fact that five mutilated bodies 
were found near the ruins of two ancient temples, or 
chapels, was sufiicient to suggest the idea of a religious 
sacrifice, and, when aided by the representation upon the 
walls of the deserted temples, with which they had now 
become familiar, to confirm it. Once possessed of this, 
so many sinister ends would be served by its promulga- 
tion, that what at first was simply a mistake, became at 
last a monstrous libel on all the Indian races of New 
Spain. Diaz thus describes the circumstance : — " We 
found two houses, which were strongly built of stone and 
lime ; both were ascended by a flight of steps, and sur- 
rounded by a species of altar, on which stood several 
abominable idols [statues], to whom the preceding even- 
ing five Indians had been sacrificed. Their dead bodies 
still lay there, ripped open, with the arms and legs chopped 
off, while everything near was besmeared with blood. We 



302 END OF grijalva's explorations. 



contemplated this sight with utter astonishment, and gave 
this island the name of Sacrificios."* 

From this island they removed to the main land, where 
they were much annoyed by mosquitoes. Ultimately the 
voyagers passed over to the island of San Juan de TJloa, 
now occupied by the famous fortress that defends the city 
of Yera Cruz. Here, too, it is alleged human sacrifice 
had just been offered — the victims were two boys. But 
as the statement is without any confirmation, and the 
character of this little coral island forbids the idea of its 
ever having been the seat of a Phoenician temple, or a 
resort of Indians, for their festivals, we must be allowed 
to doubt the statement altogether. We regard it as the 
beginning of that series of invented cruelties, cunningly 
devised, to justify all the enormities committed by Cortez. 
Here Alvarado was selected to carry back to Cuba a por- 
tion of the gold they had acquired, and intelligence of 
the success of the voyage. The voyage was further ex- 
tended to the mouth of the Panuca, and from thence to 
the Rio Grande, in which vicinity it was terminated by 
the failure of its pilots to double a boisterous cape. On 
their return they careened one of the vessels beside 
the Tonola river, where they had further success in 
barter, so as to make the total amount of gold acquired 
in this adventure amount to twenty thousand dollars.^ 
The rest of the homeward run being without any impor- 
tant incident, we shall now bid adieu to Grijalva, who also 



* Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 31. $1500, without any satisfactory rea- 

t This amount, the reader will no- son. 
tice, has grown rather rapidly from 



LLORENTE. 303 



disappears at this time from the scene, and is succeeded 
by the renowned conqueror of Mexico — Cortez. 



SOCIEDAD MEJICANA DE GEOGRAFIA Y ESTADISTICA. 

This is an institution hardly to be expected in so distracted a capital as 
Mexico. It is, however, a very useful one It publishes monthly bulletins, 
containing reconnoissances of different portions of the Republic. By direc- 
tion of Santa Anna, Don Manuel Leodo de Tegido collected me a nearly 
complete set of its numbers, which I have found very useful in correcting my 
own reconnoissances, and where I have not been personally, it has served as 
a guide in determining the value of the observations of others. Its statistics 
are usually only approximations, and are not altogether reliable, as a Span- 
iard is not very accurate in guessing. 

DON JUAN ANTONIO LLORENTE, 

Late Secretary of Inquisition, Chancellor of the University of Toledo, Knight 
of the Order of Charles III., <&c., &c. 

This distinguished personage was ordered, by the government of Spain, to 
complete a history of the Inquisition, from the official records, after that 
institution had been suppressed. His treatise, being in the nature of au 
official work, is necessarily dry and voluminous. His object is, of course, 
designed to vindicate the action of the Spanish Cortes or Parliament, before 
the church and the nation. It is therefore thoroughly Romish in its character, 
and undertakes to establish that its suppression was consistent with piety. A 
Protestant, with the same material, would have produced a very different book. 
I have, as usual, copied from the most common edition, that my readers may 
judge whether the quotations are accurate. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

CORTEZ INVADES MEXICO. 

Hernandc Cortez, 304 — A miracle, 305 — Cortez' life in the "West Indies, 305 
— Cortez appointed to command an expedition, 309 — Cortez sails from the 
Havana, 309— Robertson resuscitates Spanish myths, 310— Bernal Diaz, 313 
— Cortez reforming the Indian religion, 314 — Antique statues overturned 
by Cortez, 317 — A muster of forces, 317 — Adieu to ancient ruins, 318 — The 
battles at Tobasco, 319 — Second and third battle, 320 — A battle in vrhicli 
San Jago appears on a white horse, 322 — How Cortez converts twenty Indian 
females, 323 — Landing at Vera Cruz, 324 — Dona Marina, 326. 

Nine years before the discovery of America, at the town 
of MedelUn, in Estramadura, the wife of Captain Martin 
Cortez was made glad by the birth of a son, to whom his 
parents gave the honorable name of Hernando, Ferdinand. 
As he grew in years, he proved to be a lad of quick parts 
and reckless disposition. At fourteen he was sent to the 
University, where he gave more attention to light litera- 
ture than to Latin, and made such poor progress, that, at 
the end of two years, he left,* an unsuccessful student — 
a mortification to his friends, and a burden to himself. 
He had, however, acquired there that taste for romance, 
which, in after time, gave color and tone to his famous 
letters to the emperor. He remained with his parents a 

* " He showed little fondness for the great chagrin of his parents." — 
books, and after loitering away two Prescott, vol. I., p. 231. 
years at college, returned home, to 

(304) 



A MIRACLE. 305 



year, exhibiting those habits of profligacy which, at the 
close of the civil wars, were so common at the Spanish 
universities, that morality was an almost obsolete idea. 
The army is the usual alternative for such spirits, and to 
the army his friends had gladly sent him, but he chose 
another field ; one subject to less restraint than the camp — 
the New World. He had sailed with Ovando, but climb- 
ing to a woman's chamber, the wall gave way and fell 
upon him, unfitting him for the sea at that time.* This 
escapade was considered an unusual affair for a youth of 
seventeen, even in Spain If Two 3'ears later — 1504 — his 
bruises, but not his morals, healed ; he took, however, his 
departure, to the great relief of his friends. 

With this voyage began a series of apocryphal miracles, 
that checker his whole future career. A reformation was 
not the first. At the early age of nineteen he seems to 
have outstripped the healing power of the sacred images. 
The mishap in his native city in nowise damped his 
ardor for disreputable adventures, or, in fashionable 



* Gomora, — for the worst of men in the fifteenth century. Protestants, 

have chaplains, — says, " to speak with who do not understand the social or- 

a lady." ganization of Romish society, are 

" He was scaling a high wall, one shocked at the official announcements 
night, which gave him access to a of the illegitimate births in the best- 
lady with whom he had an intrigue, conditioned Romish countries of Eu- 
the stones gave way, and he was rope. Such statistics simply indicate 
thrown down with much violence, the poverty of the mass of the people, 
and buried under the ruins." — Pres- and their inability to employ a priest 
COTT, vol. I., p. 232. to solemnize their marriages. Many 

t The standard of morality in Ro- evils, doubtless, grow out of it, but it 

mish as well as in Protestant coun- is unavoidable ; people will be married 

tries has been gradually rising from "behind the church," so long as the 

the "lowest depths" it had reached priest insists upon extortionate fees. 
20 



106 COKTEZ' LIFE IN THE WEST INDIES. 



phrase, for gallantry.* His notoriety in this respect, even 
in the West Indies, was far from enviable ; and yet upon 
this scapegrace the Virgin is reputed to have lavished her 
favors. In Protestant countries, the name of the third 
person of the Trinity is never pronounced but with pro- 
found reverence ; among Romanists, however, Santo Espi- 
ritu is used with the same levity as that of any of the 
saints of their calendar. In this vein we are told, that 
the master of the vessel, in which Cortez had taken 
passage, losing his reckoning, a dove, claimed to per- 
sonify the Holy Ghost, flew from the island of San 
Domingo, and lit upon the rigging, thus indicating the 
direction to be taken. 

Our hero was highly favored by the governor, who 
readily assigned him a plantation and stock of Indian 
slaves — repartimientos,-^ conferring upon him also the 
honorable office of escribano, or civil law notary. But this 
responsible judicial position did not in anywise prevent 
his indulging those vices he had brought from Spain, and 
many an encounter and wound were the result. This 
was, however, before Protestant morahty had an existence, 
and long before it made itself felt in Romish countries. 
Europe had just been devastated by a pestilence, propa- 



* " The story of his early life now f What the system of task-labor 
becomes very confused, as is natu- imposed on the Indians was, prior to 
rally the case with that of any man the new laws, we do not know. There 
who rises to great eminence, and who was such irregularity in this respect, 
was connected with some ambiguous that the safest way is to consider 
transactions." — Prescott. That is them simply as slaves, which doubt- 
modest ! equal to Gomora — " climbing less was their true condition, 
a wall to speak to a lady." 



CORTEZ LIFE IN THE WEST INDIES. 



507 



gated by popular vices, as our chronicler informs us f' and 
Spain, the most demoralized of all its states, was at that 
time a very lazar-house of corruption .■!• The Inquisi- 
tion, all powerful against the liberties of the countrj^, was 
unequal to a contest with licentiousness. It undertook 
to correct the morals of the clergy of Seville, and called 
upon the ladies there to denounce the crimes of their con- 
fessors. But this decree excited such commotion it had 
to be suppressed.J Vice was more powerful than that 



" ... Over common, then, in 
Spain, and elsewhere, which never- 
theless chastise the world in such 
sort, but that this sinne is at this day 
more in use than ever it was, to the 
dishonor of our God, contempt of his 
laws, and confusion of all good order. 
The Spaniards, in recompense for 
this evil brought from the Indies, 
carried thither the king's evil, and 
madness by the biting of dogges." — 
Grimshaw, page 948 (D.) 

" These troopes of Spaniards, among 
other memorable matters, brought the 
great plague into Italy, wherewith 
they of the country were soon pos- 
sessed, and did communicate it to the 
Frenchmen, who were scattered here 
and there in the kingdom of Naples, 
and they afterwards brought it on to 
this side of the mounts [the Alps], 
and did distribute it to their neigh- 
boring nations, so as this disease, 
being indeed of [the West] Indies," 
&c.—76td., page 952 (C.) 

f " Great was the king and queen's 
toyle, in ordering the peace and quiet 
of the countrey of Andalusia, for the 
people thereof were so given over to all 
manner of villanies, as if they had not 
used their meekenesse and clemencie, 



the citties and towns would have been 
voyd, and empty of people, for it is 
most certain that this year and the 
former there went of Sevile and Cor- 
dova above 8000 men, tainted of no- 
torious crimes, who left the country 
for fear of punishment. 

" It happened, about the same time, 
that Don Rodrigo de Vergera, Bishop 
of Leon, caused Pedro Vaca, treasu- 
rer of his church, to be slain in the 
same cittie, whose death his friends 
and kindfolkes did revenge by the 
death of the bishop, who assayled him 
in his own house. 

" In the town of Tontourjuna, the 
inhabitants did kill with stones D. 
Hernand Gomes de Guzman, great 
commander of Calatrava, for outrages 
and tyrannies he had done to them." 
— Grimshaw, page 872. 

X " Several scandalous discoveries 
having been made by private investi- 
gation, and the public clamor increas- 
ing, the Inquisition of Seville came 
to a resolution of which they had 
reason to repent, that an edict of de- 
nunciation should be published in all 
the churches of the province, requir- 
ing, under severe penalty, those who 
had been solicited by priests in the 



308 CORTEZ MARRIES A WIFE. 



terrible tribunal, though backed by the whole power of 
the state. Thus much should be said of Cortez in mitiga- 
tion. He was no worse than the average of his day ; and 
neither his vices nor his employments were allowed to 
consume his entire time. From continued conflicts with 
his savage neighbors, he became an expert hunter of 
Indians, and a finished ranger. Thus, in San Domingo, 
he acquired that knowledge and those methods by which 
war is successfully prosecuted against the aborigines of 
this hemisphere. This he afterwards perfected in Cuba, 
while acting as a subaltern under Yelasquez. He then 
became a leader of the Cuban malcontents, and was in 
consequence imprisoned and placed in irons. Notwith- 
standing two unsuccessful escapes, at last, in desperation, 
he forced his way into the very presence of Velasquez, 
with whom he had the good fortune to effect a reconcilia- 
tion. When the guards came to their master, to announce 
this third outbreak of their prisoner, they found Cortez 
actually in bed with Velasquez, At least it is so stated 
by his biographer and chaplain, Gomora.* Our hero now 
married a lady whom he had formerly jilted — an act 
gratifying to Velasquez — and again devoted himself to a 
plantation life. After receiving the grant of an estate 
near Santiago, he became a magistrate, or alcalde, of that 



confessional to criminal intercourse, riod of denunciation until it extended 

or who knew of it having been done, to one hundred and twenty days. The 

to give information to the Holy Office priests were thrown into the greatest 

within thirty days. In consequence confusion, the peace of families was 

of this intimation, such numbers broken, and the whole city rang with 

flocked to the Triana that the Inqui- scandal." — Montanus, 184-188. 

sitors were forced to prolong the pe- ••■• Gomora, Chron., chap. 4. 



CORTEZ SAILS FROM THE HAVANA. 309 



city. There we must leave him for a season, having 
run over the prominent points of his biography, to return 
to Grijalva and the survey of the Gulf coast. 

The result of the expeditions of Cordova and Grijalva 
had not damped the spirit of speculation in Velasquez. 
Before the return of the second, the note of preparation 
for a third was sounded. Dissatisfied with Grijalva's 
apparent want of energy, he turned, but not without 
hesitation, to Cortez, whose daring and restless spirit had 
so much disturbed his government in Cuba. The present 
enterprise, though fitted out like others, as a joint com- 
mercial speculation, it was designed to turn into a military 
one, if the royal permission could be had. 

The man Velasquez selected for his captain was a 
bolder spirit than even he anticipated. One who fully 
understood, that royal favor waits upon success ; and that 
kings never reject the sovereignty of rich provinces, 
however irregularly acquired. The value of present gold 
to an embarrassed emperor, and promises of further aid, he 
argued, would blind him to any trespass upon his rights. 
This well known weakness of princes led him, even 
without a license, to put to sea. He even sailed from 
the Havana in contempt of an official prohibition. It was 
the part of a desperate gambler, and he won; but he 
probably would not, if the alternative of punishment had 
not goaded his resolution. Steering his little fleet in the 
track of Grijalva, it was carried by the accident of 
currents, or a misreckoning, to the south of Cape Catoche, 
so that the land was made inside the island of Cozumel, 
and there begin the adventures of Cortez. 



310 ROBERTSON RESUSCITATES MYTHS. 



"We called the discovery of Yucatan and its ruins the 
second act in this drama. The third now opens before us^ 
more unreal in its facts, than the Arabian tales them- 
selves, yet was it once received as history ; subsequently 
discarded as a myth, and sinking into contempt,* near 
the close of the last century it was resuscitated by 
Robertson, a Presbyterian minister ! Not content with the 
injury done to the cause of godliness, by aiding that 
of patronage, he travelled to Spain in search of religious 
heroes to exhibit still further his proclivities. In his 
hands, the gluttonous Charles V. dies almost a saint, 
and a pattern of abstinence.f Next the musty records 
of a discarded imposture are hunted up and adopted 
as historical verities, though those "who have resided 
long in New Spain, and had visited every part of it," 
assured him, there was not in all its extent, any monu- 



* Robertson, and other persons, The only evidence we can have on 
equally ignorant of the operation of this point is and must necessarily be 
Spanish institutions, have inquired purely negative. The argument run- 
hovf such statements could possibly ning through Dupaix' notes, combat- 
pass uncontradicted. ting a disbelief in ancient Aztec civili- 

There are tveo kinds of contradic- zation, clearly indicates that such 

tion : one in private circles and in unbelief generally existed. 

general terms, which is soon forgot- f " His appetite was excessive, 

ten ; the other in detail, which must rivalling that of Louis XIV., or Fre- 

be in writing, to have any effect. To derick the Great, or any other royal 

have done the latter, in regard to a gourmand, whose feats are recorded 

book that had received the ghostly in history. The pertinacity with which 

license, would have cost the contra- he gratified it, under all circum- 

dictor a roasting at a slow fire, an stances, amounts to a trait of charac- 

uuto defe. ter." — Prescott's Charles V., vol. 

The intelligent people of Spain and III., p. 367. 
Mexico fully understood the character 
of their published books. 



ROBERTSON AS AN HISTORIAN. 



Ill 



mentj or vestige of any building, more ancient than the 
conquest.* The honorable position of Robertson and the 
example of so prominent a divine became contagious. It 
was followed, among historians, by eulogies on the Romish 
missions, while the more successful efforts of Protestants 
in the same direction, were entirely ignored. The 
author, in his wanderings, has seen much of the missions 
of both professions, and in every instance he has found 
the same marked distinction between the two creeds, as 
between Protestant and Romish Europe,f or the prosper- 
ous villages of New England, and the squalid abodes of 
Lower Canada.^ Having sacriiEiced the best interests of 



* Note 154 to Robertson's America. 
— Robertson wrote before the sur- 
veys of Phoenician ruins, by Dupaix, 
■were known in Europe. He was con- 
temporary with the Jesuit Clavigero, 
but had the start of that impostor. 

f After hearing an account of the 
wretched condition of our own tribe, 
the Massasaugus, before their con- 
version, I had occasion to visit their 
village. A simple-hearted Methodist 
preacher had been there before me, 
laboring for many years. He was a 
pattern of godliness and industry ; 
and his labors had not, by any means, 
been in vain. Instead of vermin and 
rags, and every other filthy abomina- 
tion, which I had been led to expect, 
I found the people clothed, and in 
their right minds. I have never, be- 
fore or since, seen so neat and orderly 
an Indian village. I felt proud of my 
adopted kindred. 

Shortly after this I chanced to be 
amongst those Iroquois, who were 



converted to Romanism in the time of 
James II., and led away by the Je- 
suits to Lower Canada, and planted 
at St. Regis and Cochanawagali. I 
remonstrated with the agent at his 
allowing them to remain in such bar- 
barism and degradation. His reply 
was. It was not his fault ; he had 
often established schools among them, 
but the priest had uniformly broken 
them up. The contrast between the 
Stockbridge Indians of Wisconsin 
and the Pottawatomies of Kansas, I 
found equally striking. I speak of 
the Indians of the full-blood. And 
I call every experienced traveller to 
witness if I have over-stated the case 
the scruple of a hair. 

X The whitewash on the huts of 
the French peasants give them a fine 
appearance at a distance, but within 
all is a blank, except in a few villages 
of Protestant converts, where all is 
cleanliness and thrift. 



312 



PtOBERTSOJN" AS AN HISTORIAN. 



his own church, Dr. Robertson devoted — is it possible ! — 
seven years of his life* in weaving an apocryphal history 



* What could the man have been 
about all that time ? An agent would 
procure all those books and MSS. in 
three months ! The point we make 
against Robertson is, that he discard- 
ed the testimony of living witnesses, 
whose character he himself endorses, 
and adopts in their stead, as historic 
authorities, the cast-off literary fabrica- 
tions, concocted under the supervision 
of Inquisitors ! Mr. Prescott having 
obtained copies of the most important 
Simanca papers, of Ximenes' collec- 
tion, supposes them a new discovery, 
of great value. Doubtless they are ; 
his agents did not fail to represent 
them to him in the most exalted 
terms, to enhance the value of their 
services according to the Spanish 
custom. 

The misfortune of Mr. Prescott, 
first and last, is his inability to make 
a personal research, so that we can 
derive no benefit from his integrity 
and excellent personal character. 
Here is the difficulty we encounter in 
all his literary labors. He has to 
take things on trust. 

Cardinal Ximenes [Jimines] was 
not only Regent of Spain before the 
arrival of Charles V., but was also 
Inquisitor-general of the kingdom, 
and one of the most blood-thirsty of 
that whole race of monsters. 

" During the eleven years of his 
ministry (which ended with his death, 
1517), Cisneros (Ximenes) permitted 
the condemnation of 52,855 individu- 
als, 3564 were burnt in person, 1232 
in ef&gy, and 4832 suffered different 
punishments. Although the number 



of executions is immense, yet it must 
be acknowledged that Cisneros had 
taken measures to relax the activity 
of the Inquisition." The motive of 
this is explained on the same page, and 
by the same author. " Ximenes de 
Cisneros began to exercise his new 
employment [Inquisitor-general], on 
the 1st October, 1506, when the con- 
spiracy against the Holy Office had 
become almost general, on account 
of the events at Cordova, of which 
the Council of Castile took cognisance. 
All its members who had been of the 
party of Philip I., signalized them- 
selves by their hatred against the In- 
quisition. This aversion made Xime- 
nes de Cisneros feel the necessity of 
conducting himself with extreme cau- 
tion, that he might not give occasion 
for a general convocation of the 
Cortez, which would have deprived 
him of the high office of governor of 
the kingdom, which he then possess- 
ed." — Llorente (abridged), page 35. 

This is the monster who had him- 
self written down a great statesman, 
and a patron of literature ! And so 
he appears in the pages of Prescott. 
This wretch became so immensely 
rich, by his Inquisitorial plundering, 
that to reinstate his p^opularity he 
fitted out a powerful ai^nada against 
the Moors of Africa at his own ex- 
pense. 

This is the founder of the Samanca 
collection of papers. Any one who 
will carefully examine them will see 
that hardly a single paper has been 
put into this collection that does not, 
in some way, reflect glory on the 



BERNAL DIAZ. 313 



from a collection of monkish tales, whose alleged facts a 
careful examination would have shown to be physical 
contradictions. The manuscripts and printed books 
necessary to the task, required an expenditure rather of 
money than of time. But he seems wholly to have 
neglected to investigate the influence of Spanish despotism 
upon its literature ; otherwise, we should have to charge 
the reverend compiler, with concealing the circumstances 
under which those narratives upon which he relies were 
written — whose authors were little more than the aman- 
uenses of Superiors, Qualificators, Inquisitors,* and Royal 
Councillors. 

We pointed out these difiBculties when treating of the 
annals which purport to be written by Bernal Diaz, in 
which there are striking marks of the counterfeit instead 
of the common soldier. Though exceedingly minute in 

church, or show the royal approval of this nation According to 

of the Inquisition. the bulls which created the holy office, 

The monk, Strada, must have con- the bishops are joint judges in the 

suited them in the composition of his affairs which depend on that tribunal, 

history of the Low Country Wars. See Why then have these natural judges 

pages 3 and 6 (Stapleton's Transla- of all discussions which may arise on 

iiora, London, 1650), though he does matters of faith and the morals of the 

not call the papers by that name, faithful, no part or influence in the 

The Glanville papers are not alone prohibition of books and the choice 

his authorities. of qualifiers?" — Report of King's 

Robertson's convent life of Charles (Charles IIL) Procurators to the 

V. is almost literally taken from Council of Castile. 

Strada. He hoped it was true, as it "In the year 1558, the terrible law 

exactly answered his purpose, ena- of Philip II. was published, which 

bling him to wind up his history with decreed the punishment of death and 

a pious flourish ! confiscation for all those who should 

* "The abuse of the prohibitions sell, buy, keep, or read, the books pro- 
of books, commanded by the Inqui- hibited by the holy office." — Llorente 
sition, is one cause of the ignorance (abridgment), Secretary to the Iiiqui- 
which prevails over the greatest part sition, page 44. 



314 BEENAL DIAZ. 



detail, its statements are often irreconcilable with each 
other, with those of the chaplain of Grijalva, as 
lately published, and the unsuppressed portion of Cortez' 
letters.* The work would fain seem to have been 
Avritten designedly, to snatch from the last some of the 
glory he had assumed, which justly belonged to his 
companions.f But the real effect is, in truth, to sustain 
in its more credible parts the narrative it assails, which 
was then manifestly falling into contempt.J Thus he 
says '-for everything in which he [Cortez] concerned 
himself went well, particularly in regard to making peace 
with the tribes, or inhabitants of these countries. This 
the reader will find fully confirmed in the course of my 
history."§ But we may safely follow Diaz in unimportant 
particulars, as the work appears to be a digest of former 
publications and manuscripts to which that author seems 
to have had access, and presents a fair picture of the 
Romish superstition, as personified in its champion. 

Let us now consider Cortez as a religious reformer ! But 



* The reader must bear in mind sent Marquis del Valle, the son of 

that the published letters — or des- Cortez, and not to His Majesty the 

patches of Cortez, as they are called king." — Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 42. 

— ^begin with the second of the series ; % He is equally bad whenever he 

the first being wholly suppressed, writes about the magnitude of the 

So, too, Las Cases' account ends with towns, and number of the inhabi- 

the landing of Cortez at Vera Cruz. tants ; in which, whenever it suits 

f " With him [Gomara] every him, he does not, for instance, hesi- 
circumstance is made to turn to the tate a moment to put eight thousand, 
glory and honor of Cortez, while no for eight. In the same way he men- 
mention is made of the other brave tions the extensive buildings we were 
ofDcers and soldiers : but, the par- stated to have commenced. — Ibid., 
tiality of this author is sufficiently page 39. 
seen from the circumstance of his § Ibid., vol. I., page 57. 
having dedicated his work to the pre- 



CORTEZ REFORMING THE INDIAN" RELIGION. 315 



such only among Indians. He begins his career of apostle- 
ship to the Virgin, according to Diaz, at Cozumel, among 
the ruined Phoenician chapels — on truncated pyramids.* 
By means of a Jamaica Indian woman, who had wandered 
thither, and one Malchorego from Cape Catouche, he 
induced the Indians to return to their homes, and soon a 
loving intimacy sprang up- between the two races. One 



* Mount Sinai is a naturally 
truncated pyramid in the chain of 
Horeb. Whether the worship on 
"high places" existed before the ad- 
vent of Israel, or whether it arose 
from an idolatrous desire to imitate 
the scenes of Sinai by Israelites 
themselves, as the Mass does that 
of the New Dispensation, must be 
left to conjecture. Certain it is, that 
the worship of Canaanites, Phoeni- 
cians, and of idolatrous Israelites, had 
this common characteristic — that it 
was offered on high places. 

In the time of David and Solomon, 
Jehovah was irregularly worshipped 
upon these " high places ;" and the 
fair construction of 1 Kings iii. 4, 
and 1 Chron. i. 3, is that the taber- 
nacle of Moses was pitched upon "the 
great high place" at Gibeon, as it 
could have been pitched upon that 
of Cholula, or Copan. 

To draw the people from this wor- 
ship on high places, seems to have 
been one of the motives for building 
the temple at Jerusalem. But it 
seems to have resulted in their being 
turned to the idolatrous uses to which 
the Canaanites applied them. 

These high places may have been 
of three kinds. 1. Natural hills, 
shaved off and truncated, like Cho- 



lula ; 2. Artificial truncated mounds 
of earth; and lastly, artificial mounds 
of stone. 

On the top of each there may have 
been a chapel ; and within the wall 
that enclosed this sacred structure, 
were doubtless the houses of the 
priests and the religious — "the houses 
of the high places." The sacred 
groves, too, may have been planted 
within this enclosure ; and the name 
sacred grove may have been applied 
to the whole establishment, including 
pyramidal buildings, as well as trees ; 
for nothing but stone can be reduced 
to powder by burning and stamping, 
as in 2 Kings xxiii. 6, 15. 

All this can be clearly made out 
from the present appearance, and the 
early Spanish accounts of the sacred 
pyramids, chapels, and buildings 
about them in Yucatan. There was 
nothing of this sort at the city of 
Mexico, when the Spaniards arrived ; 
and the fact of their locating one 
there, clearly proves that they must 
have had an original out of which to 
fabricate so exact a copy. 

It is these pyramidal chapels, and 
their surroundings, which more than 
all else we identify as strictly Phoeni- 
cian. 



316 CORTEZ REFORMING THE INDIAN RELIGION. 



morning the Spaniards discovered the place where the 
abominable idols — the antique statues ? — stood was covered 
with Indians and their wives. They were burning a 
species of resin — copal ? — " which very much resembled 
our incense, after which an old Indian mounted to the 
top of the temple and preached a sermon to the Indians" — 
this was probably some annual festival. Cortez, through 
his interpreters, learned the substance of the discourse, 
"and that all lie had heen saying tended to ungodliness •" 
whereupon he ordered the chiefs and principal men into 
his presence. After informing them they must give up 
sacrificing to these idols ! " which were no gods but evil 
beings by which they were led into error, and their 
souls sent to Hell, he presented them with an image of 
the Virgin and the cross, which he desired them to put 
up instead. These, he said, would prove a blessing to 
them at all times, make their seeds grow, and preserve 
their souls from eternal perdition. This and many other 
things respecting our holy religion, Cortez explained to 
them in a very neat and excellent manner."* This is 
the first recorded instance of a pirate teaching the faith — 
teaching idolatry to worshippers of the Great Spirit! 
Then Cortez " commanded the idols" — the antique statues ? 
— " to be pulled down, and to be broken to pieces, which 
was accordingly done without any further ceremony;" 
then " a very pretty altar was constructed, on which we 
placed the image of the holy Virgin," at the same time 
two of the carpenters make a cross of wood. Then Juan 
Diaz said mass. Thus was a new superstition inaugu- 



Diaz, vol. I., page 61. 



ANTIQUE STATUES OYERTURNED. 317 



rated. How much superior was it to that of the Phoe- 
nicians? 

We are at no loss to ascertain what those " idols" were, 
thus thrown down by Cortez, in his newly-awakened 
zeal. Stephens, in describing a ruined pyramidal chapel 
yisited by him on this island, says : " In the doorway 
are two columns, making three entrances, with square 
recesses above them, all of which once contained orna- 
ments ; and in the centre one, fragments of a statue still 
remaining, viz., built into the wall, like the overturned 
Palenque statue." That is, Cortez destroyed the memo- 
rial of the ancient Madonna and her cross ; and set up 
the statue of the Spanish Madonna and her emblem ! 
Stephens says further: " These buildings" — ruins — "were 
identically the same with those on the mainland ; if we 
had seen hundreds, we could not have been more firmly 
convinced that they were all erected and occupied by the 
same people."* The reader will see that against the 
Indians there is no allegation, as yet, of human sacrifice. 
It is simply charged that they held a meeting in one of 
the chambers of a deserted temple, and there burned 
copal; and that afterwards, an old man — according to 
custom — addressed them from an elevated position ! All 
in keeping with their practice. There may have been 
another object in this suppression — Cortez may have 
reserved this fearful charge, to justify his cruelties to the 
Aztecs. 

After this exhibition, a muster of the forces took place. 
There were present five hundred and eight men, not 

* Stephens's Yucatan, vol. II., page 375. 



318 MUSTER OF FORCES PRISONER RESCUED. 



including pilots and mariners ; one hundred and nine 
sailors ; sixteen horses, trained equally for war or the 
tournament. A squadron of eleven vessels also, including 
a small brigantine. Of the land forces, thirty-three were 
cross-bowmen, and thirteen musketeers; besides the above, 
the array possessed four small cannon, called falconets,* 
with a good supply of gunpowder and ball. To give a 
color of religion to their expedition, the party carried 
with them a banner bearing an effigy of the cross.f Diaz 
says it bore an image of the Virgin ; J and accordingly a 
bright damask satin one has been fabricated and placed 
in the Museum at Mexico, duly certified to have been 
this original standard of Cortez ! One vessel leaking, the 
whole fleet returned. The disabled craft, however, was 
soon discharged, refitted, and ready for sea. While so 
engaged, Aguilar, a Spaniard who had been long detained 
a prisoner on the neighboring coast, came over to them, 
and proved most useful as an interpreter. The first ser- 
vice he rendered, was to advise the Indians of the island 
" to honor the image of the holy Virgin and cross we had 
set up, as they would prove a Messing to them."^ So, after 
an interval of some thousand years, the adoration of the 
Queen of Heaven and her emblem was reintroduced at 
Cozumel. 

Things being in readiness, they weighed anchor, and 
sailed a second time. At first, with a favorable wind ; but 
in the night they experienced a heavy blow by which the 
Velasquez de Leon was separated from the rest of the fleet, 
and ran under the shelter of the Women's Promontory — 

* Diaz, vol. I., page 51. % Diaz, vol. I., page 51. 

t Folsom's Cortez, page 54. § Ihid., page 65. 



ADIEU TO ANCIENT RUINS. 319 



La Punta de las Mugeres* — so called from the numerous 
statues found there, in four large temples, mostly of women, 
viz., the Queen of Heaven ? Resuming their voyage, they 
soon reached Terminus Bay, where a dog was recovered 
that had been left by Grijalva's expedition. The little 
squadron then continued its course to the mouth of the 
Tobasco river without delay ; where we must linger, to 
bid adieu to those vestiges of an extinct empire, of which 
we shall hear no more, save as we touch, it may be, an 
occasional outpost in our subsequent adventures. The 
course followed by those ancient navigators across the 
Atlantic, to the Bay of Honduras, appears to have been 
that of the trade-winds. Near to that bay, lie the ruins 
of Copan. From thence they would naturally hug the 
coast, and double Cape Catouche, making sufficient west- 
ing to " fetch" the Gulf-stream. With that current, they 
swept past the points of Florida; and having reached the 
latitude of the variable winds, recrossed the ocean some- 
where in the neighborhood of thirty degrees. Such a 
navigation, coasts the region which contains the greater 
portion of those remains we have so often referred to, and 
so often described. 

The Indians of Tobasco, it is said, being reproached for 
their want of courage by the Yucatecos, in allowing Gri- 
jalva to land upon their shores, and for holding friendly 
intercourse with the pale-faces, to wipe away the stigma, 
made that hostile demonstration which Cortez met. All 
efforts to obtain their consent to a peaceful landing having 
failed, dispositions were made to assault the village. 

* Bulletin de Sociedad Mejicana de Geografia, &c. 



320 BATTLES AT TOBASCO. 



Some difficulty was experienced at first in obtaining a 
foothold on the shore, during which many were wounded 
by arrows and darts. Cortez himself, Diaz gravely in- 
forms us,* lost one of his slioes! At length the cannon and 
other fire-arms drove the enemy behind their barricades. 
When the first of these was carried they retreated behind 
a second, and there still made a brave resistance, but were 
at length entirely driven out. In this bloody affair the 
natives had eighteen killed, and the Spaniards fourteen 
wounded. f We have taken the liberty of deducting a 
cipher from the twelve thousand who Bernal Diaz says 
w^ere engaged.^ Such a body of undisciplined Indians 
could hardly be three times routed, in a stoutly contested 
action, by an enemy employing cannon and musketry, 
with the loss of only eighteen ! 

Two parties, of one hundred each, were immediately 
despatched to the interior, one commanded by Alvarado, 
who afterwards played a distinguished part in the war, 
the other by Francisco de Lugo. The first had fifteen, and 
the other twelve crossbowmen and musketeers in their 
respective commands. After advancing four miles, De 
Lugo was met by an overwhelming force, and compelled 
to retreat until Alvarado came to his relief. Their united 
forces then drove the assailants back, and in the end, 
when the whole strength led by Cortez himself arrived, 
put them to the route. In this second skirmish the In- 
dians had fifteen killed, while but two fell, and eight only 
were wounded, on the side of the Spaniards.§ These figures 



""" Diaz, vol. I., page 70. % Ibid., page 68. 

t Ibid., vol. I., page 71. § Ibid., page 76. 



SUCCESSFUL BUSH FIGHTING. 321 



indicate a small number of combatants on either side, and 
that the contests were rather trivial encounters than bat- 
tles. It was manifestly but bush-fighting, and in this 
Cortez and his companions, from the wars of Cuba and 
San Domingo, had become adepts. If the reader should, 
in fact, reduce the number of Indians from twelve thou- 
sand to five hundred, he would probably be near the true 
amount ; and this is a very large force, too, for savages 
suddenly to collect. We have here no other authority 
than that of Diaz, and he does not describe these engage- 
ments as one would who was personally familiar with their 
scenes. 

We now approach the first of that long series of apo- 
cryphal miracles which adorn this expedition. The six- 
teen horses landed, caparisoned and ornamented with 
trappings and bells, the little army was again led forth. 
The Indians this time received them in certain open fields 
planted with beans. In these bean plantations the enemy 
was so numerous, says Diaz, that each one of us would 
have three hundred to contend with,* a large number to 
stand within the limits of " certain bean fields :" viz., three 
hundred times five hundred, or one hundred and fifty 
thousand in one body ! This battle, it is said, was long 
and sharply contested, until the arrival of the ten horses. 
Then the enemy, who had never before beheld such 
animals, gave way,-|" leaving over eight hundred of their 
number dead upon the field ! As it is claimed that the 
chief execution was done by the sword, and that the 
battle lasted about an hour, the number slain is not extra- 

* Diaz, vol. I., page 75. f Ibid., page 76. 

21 



322 A BATTLE IN WHICH ST. JAGO APPEARS. 



ordinaril}' large. But passing over the improbability of 
Indians standing up to a hand-to-hand fight with expert 
swordsmen, we find, on close inspection of the difierent 
accounts, it was only a skirmish in an open wood " planted 
with beans." The event of the day was the interposition 
of supernatural agency; in this, however, the narrators 
are at variance, as usual. The letter of Cortez covering 
this portion of the war, having been suppressed, we have 
to decide between the claims of San Jago, as advocated by 
Gomora, and those of the Virgin, by Bernal Diaz. We 
have thus far been enabled to adjust the discrepancies of the 
Spanish chroniclers in mere sublunary matters ; but con- 
tests over the merits of patron saints, in determining the 
events of a battle, we may as well acknowledge at once, 
transcend our ability. Whether the volatile San Diego* 



* As the reader may be a little 
anxious to know something of this St. 
James, who has so long presided 
over the destinies of Spaniards, I 
here give him the whole story. 

" To this is added the finding out 
of the sepulchre of the Apostle St. 
James, neere unto Iria, by the bishop 
of that place, called Theodemir, at 
the relation of two men — which the 
Historie of Compostella, in Latin, calls 
Personaios, that is to say, masked — 
who said they had scene angels and 
torches about the place where his 
bodie was found, in a coffin of marvle, 
in a wood, in the year 797, whereat 
the Spaniards themselves do much 
wonder, seeing they find no mention 
in their Histories of St. James' Sepul- 
chre in Spaine, in all the time which 
passed since his death unto the reign 
of this Alphonso It was re- 



vealed at that time by such appari- 
tions to Theodemir, who believed it 
to be the verie bodie of St. James 
[doubtful] ; and so persuaded the 
King Don Alphonso, who was won- 
derfull joyfull thereof, and built a 
temple, endowing it with great reve- 
nues, taking this manifestation for a 
singular favor of God. The Span- 
iards have since made him their Pa- 
tron and Protector of their country — 
calling on him in all their necessities, 
especially in the war. Neighboring 
princes were amazed at this relic ; for 
we read that Charlemagne (in whose 
time Don Alphonso began to reign), 
being advertised of this invention 
[finding], posted thither, and after- 
wards obtained from Pope Leo IV., 
sitting at Rome, that the Episcopal 
Sea of Iria should be removed to Com- 
postella." — Grimshaw, page 179 (E). 



CORTEZ CONVERTS INDIAN WOMEN. 323 



did actually appear riding on a gray horse, or whether it 
was " the ever present Virgin" who routed the Tobasco 
warriors, must go down to posterity an open question. 
Having rested themselves under some trees which stood 
upon the field, our warriors then praised God and the 
Virgin, and thanked them with uplifted hands for the 
complete victory they had granted us.* After this exhi- 
bition of polytheism among the Spaniards, we are little 
surprised that they discovered the pre-existence of their 
own religion in Yucatan. It was to them a constant 
source of wonder, and to it they continually recurred. 
Presuming their own superstition to be Christianity, they 
fancied they saw in its unmistakable prototype the evi- 
dence that an apostle had been here. An hypothesis so 
absurd has not failed to tickle the fancy of at least one 
Protestant author, who boasts of the patronage of the 
king of Prussia, and dedicates to the archbishop of Can- 
terbury. 

Here Cortez again exhibited his religious zeal, but in 
entire accordance with his previous life. Twenty women 
were delivered to these invaders, as part of a peace offer- 
ing from the people of Tobasco. Before allowing them, 
however, to be appropriated by his soldiery, he had them 
duly baptized. The new-made Christians were then dis- 
tributed among his officers, as trophies of the Virgins 
victory ! Among these women was Malinche, afterwards 
known as Marina, who fell to the lot of Puerto Carrero. 
This man abandoning her on his return to Europe, she 
was taken by Cortez to himself By him she bore a son, 

* Diaz, vol. I., page 76. 



IMAGE INTEUSTED TO INDIANS. 



Don Martin Cortez. Afterwards Cortez married her to 
Juan Javamillo of Orozaha. This unfortunate woman 
enjoyed the distinguished lionor of being the first convert 
from the Aztec race. She proved faithful to the Spaniards 
in the war against her own people, and extremely useful 
as an interpreter. A great amount of romance, and some 
poetry, has been associated with this child of misfortune — 
such we must ever regard Malinche — which we shall 
refer to hereafter. Woman's life in a savage state, is a 
hard one, even in time of prosperity; but, when war 
comes, in the hands of a merciless enemy, her fate is too 
often more deplorable than death itself. Marina was not 
exempt from the common lot, whether we regard her as 
a person of low birth or of noble rank. 

We have still another exhibition of devotion to the 
Virgin, in impressing the importance of her adoration 
upon the Indians of Tobasco ; related, of course, by Diaz. 
" We prayed before the cross, and kissed it," says he, 
" the caciques and Indians all the while looking on. We 
now took our leave, and Cortez repeatedly recommended 
them to take care of the image of the Holy Virgin and 
the cross ; and to hold the chapel in reverence, in order 
that salvation and blessings might come to them."* So 
might a Phoenician rover have addressed their ancestors 
three thousand j^ears before, after setting up the Phoeni- 
cian Madonna and cross in one of the ancient chapels 
there ; and with about the same amount of Christianity. 
But we must here add, in vindication of Cortez, our con- 
viction that he never uttered one word of all this piety 

* Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 38. 



LANDING AT VERA CRUZ. 325 



and religion ascribed to him by monks and zealots, who 
wrote history but to illustrate the doctrines of their faith, 
and to show the Indias were the peculiar dominion of the 
Virgin. As Cortez coasted along, in the track of Grijalva, 
he passed the mouths of the San Antonio and Coatzacoalco, 
coming, as before, in sight of the snow-capped Orizaba, and 
the smaller San Martin. Afterwards the split rock, called 
the Chair from its peculiar form, excited attention. Then 
came the river Alvarado, and further on the Bandera — 
where the fifteen hundred dollars' worth of gold dust had 
been obtained, afterwards stated at sixteen thousand dol- 
lars j then passing the islands Blanca, Verde, and Sacrificios, 
the voyage terminated at San Juan de Uloa. It was 
while passing the mouth of the Alvarado, Puerto Cajrero 
exclaimed : 

" Cata Francia, Montesinos ! 
Cata Paris, la ciudad 
Cata las aguas de Buero, 
Do van a dar en la mar !" * 

To which Cortez, as familiar with the tales of chivalry 
as the author of Don Quixote, responded : "If God will 
grant us that good fortune in arms which he gave Rolan, 
the Paladin, then with your assistance, and that of the 
other gentlemen cavaliers, we shall succeed in everything 
else."f The disembarkation on the main was effected on 
a Friday, a day which the Romish church has set apart 
for the adoration of the cross ; the landing-place thence 



* A liberal translator thus ren- See how the Duro's sportive motion, 

^ ,, T Carries Its waters to the ocean !" 

ders these lines : 

„,,,.., t Diaz, vol. I., page 83. 

" Montesinos cast a glance ' -^•■^i^, r^ > r fc> 

On your lands, the soil of France ; 



326 DONA MARINA. 



took the name of Vei^a Cruz, which it bears to this day. 
And now we have arrived at the beginning of that war, 
which ended in the conquest of Mexico. 

We shall conclude with the apocryphal history of Dona 
Marina. As a Scripture turn makes a fable appear plau- 
sible, Marina is represented as a female Joseph, sold by 
her own kindred into slavery. She made the campaign 
of Mexico, however, in company with Cortez, in the two- 
fold capacity of interpreter and mistress ; also as a spy, her 
thorough knowledge of Indian character especially adapts 
ing her to the last office. As her services rose in impor- 
tance, so did her pedigree. It was finally discovered to 
be noble ; and though once disposed of as a slave at Jica- 
lango, and resold at Tobasco, she became, providentially, 
the property of the Spaniards, who discovered her exalted 
rank. The war over, Cortez took her with him in his 
long land journey through the south-eastern provinces of 
New Spain. Arriving at Coatzacualco, he summoned the 
surrounding chiefs to council. On this occasion, the step- 
mother and half-brother of Marina appeared, to demand 
confirmation in the inheritance which had been the 
means of her enslavement. Greatly, however, were they 
troubled when they beheld their victim in the person of 
the conqueror's mistress. But she played her part so 
well as to merit almost the title of saint.* " Dona Ma- 



* Malinche. — Since I -was last rible state of excitement, but the wo- 

here [Puebla], a bronze equestrian man is not alarmed in the least; for 

statue has been set up in the Grand she seems to be well aware that it is 

Plaza. It is a bronze woman, sit- only make-believe passion, badly exe- 

ting quietly and easily upon a furious outed in bronze. Who could this 

bronze horse. The horse is in a ter- woman be but Malinche, or Marina, 



DONA MARINA. 



327 



rina," says Diaz, " however, desired them to dry away 
their tears ;* and comforted them by saying, they were 
unconscious of what they were doing when they sent her 
away to the inhabitants of Jicolango, and that she freely 
forgave the past." 



the Indian mistress of Cortez — a fit 
patroness of the women of Puebla? 
She was the first convert that Cortez 
ever made to Christianity ; and her 
sort of Christianity is not unusual in 
Mexico. That beautiful cone that 
rises so majestically out of the plain 
between Puebla and Tlascala, bears 
the name of Malinche ; but as this 
name was applied to her paramour as 
well as to herself, an additional testi- 
monial, in the form of a bronze statue, 
was deemed requisite ; for she is con- 
sidered here as almost a saint, and 
would be altogether such if she had 
not been the mother of children, and 
ended her career by getting married. 
That act of getting married — not her 
former life — rendered her unfit for a 



saint ; for how could an honest house- 
wife be a saint? She might have 
been the best of mothers and the best 
of wives, and have performed scru- 
pulously the duties that God had as- 
signed to her upon earth ; but she 
was lacking in romance, in those 
aerial materials from which saints 
are made. Saints are made in damp, 
cold prison-cells, where, in the midst 
of self-inflicted misery, they see vi- 
sions, dream dreams, and perform 
cures upon crowds as deluded as 
themselves. 

* Indians do not weep in antici- 
pation of suffering. This idea of 
begging them to dry their tears, is a 
Spanish imported idea — not belong- 
ing to the aborigines. 



CHAPTER IX. 

CORTEZ SETTLES AFFAIRS AT VERA CRUZ, AND MARCHES TO 

TLASCALA. 

The character of Montezuma, 328 — His administration and policy, 329 — Tra- 
dition of the coming pale-faces, 330 — The Indian presents and their quality, 
331 — The religion propagated by the Spaniards, 333 — Indian idolatry and 
cannibalism explained, 334 — The real and apocryphal Indian presents, 336 
— The picture writings and the soldier's casque, 337 — How Cortez was 
appointed Captain-General, 338 — Cortez moves to Sempoalla, and his mis- 
sionary zeal, 339 — The fleet moved to oldest Vera Cruz, 341 — Expedition 
to Tzinpantzinco, 342 — Cortez acts the diplomatist, 342 — Cortez and others 
obtain each a squaw, 342 — Cortez exhibits his zeal for religion, 344 — Cor- 
tez sends agents and presents to Charles V., 346 — The council of the 
Indias on Cortez, 347 — The emperor favors Cortez, 348 — An attempted 
piracy, 349 — Did Cortez or a tornado strand his vessels, 349 — The march 
to the interior, 351 — The scenery peculiarly American, 352 — Its extraordi- 
nary beauty, 353 — The rapidity of Cortez' marches, 354 — The real merit 
of Cortez, 355 — Cortez crossing the high mountain, 355 — March across the 
barren land, 358 — The country through which Cortez marches, 359. 

The material for buccaneering or piracy has never been 
wanting in the West Indies. It came with Columbus, and 
continued to flow thither as long as gold or plunder were 
in prospect. The expedition of Cortez, we have seen, was 
in nowise in a moral view superior to those which pre- 
ceded, nor to the thousands that have followed it. Its 
importance was the result of accident. The Indian con- 
federacy of the Mexican valley was then in the zenith of 
its power. At its head was one endowed with those great 
quahties which ever confer on their possessor despotic 

(328) 



Montezuma's administration and policy. 329 



sway. In him they were well expressed by the combmed 
office of prophet, sachem, and chief.* No people vene- 
rate hereditary honor more than the lords of the forest. 
But when to rank are added the highest achievements of 
war and eloquence, he who unites them in his person may 
well be styled an emperor. No other word adequately 
expresses the power he then exercises over his people ; 
and such was at once the eloquent prophet and successful 
war chief of the Tezcucans and Tacubans, the sachem of 
the Aztecs — Montezuma. 

All the Spanish narratives bear unwitting testimony to 
his adeptness in the unintelligible mysteries of the magic 
art ; and in war he had been the leader of the confederated 
braves. He had conducted his soldiers to the sack of sur- 
prised villages, and to the slaughter of unwatchful ene- 
mies. And he had not only driven back the Tlascalans 
from the salt Laguna,-\ and from the rich southern val- 
leys, but enclosed them within a line of posts extending 
to the Gulf. These varied operations had called for con- 
stant appeals to the Council House, and there, with burn- 
ing words, like those of BrandtJ and Red Jacket, he had 
imparted that foreign and domestic policy which looked 

* The sachem is an hereditary have any personal knowledge of this 

ruler, in the female line, as already distinguished native orator. The au- 

noticed in the first chapter. Civil thor's father, hovrever, vras in the 

chief, as vrell as the war chief, is an habit of attending councils in which 

office conferred for merit. Brandt was orator. 

t The tequisquita of this laguna, When discussing the policy the 
we have already said, is used is a confederacy ought to adopt, he is re- 
substitute for salt in the food of the presented as remarkably eloquent, 
inhabitants of that region now, as and sometimes very leugthy ; his 
formerly. speeches oftentimes extending to a 

% The a,uthor is too young to period of two hours. 



330 TRADITION OF THE COMING PALE-FACES. 



to the universal dominion of the confederacy. The pre- 
ponderance conceded to Mexico was, by acclamation, be- 
stowed upon him, her hereditary sachem and chosen war 
chief* Superior to all his enemies on land, still the pro- 
gress of the pale-faces towards his peculiar home was 
anxiously watched, and daily communications, by swift- 
footed runners, were established with the coast. 

Tradition had handed down to the Aztecs, through un- 
told generations, at least from a remote antiquity, a 
memorable story. It told that pale faces had once before 
occupied the hot country ;f coming from beyond the 
" great water." Perhaps with this were coupled also tales 
of suffering and wrongs ; perhaps how cruelly they, the 
natives, had been forced, by these hard task-masters, to 
labor upon the truncated pyramids and their crowning 
chapels. With unrequited Indian toil, these men had 
builded cities and public works which still preserved their 
memory, though they themselves had long since perished, 
having fulfilled their allotted centuries. But with their 
decaying monuments they left a fearful prophecy, and 
thus it ran : that " floating houses" would again return 
to the eastern coast, wafted by like winds, and filled 
with the same race, to teach the same religion,! and 

* The most distinguished brave accounts, which we do not care to 

is ordinarily chosen the war chief. disturb without evidence. 

As a prophet professes inspiration % I have here given a little dif- 
from the Great Spirit, it is an irregu- ferent shading to the famous tradition 
lar office, dependent on pretended of the expected arrival of the pale- 
supernatural influences. It is some- faces. There has been too much 
times exercised by the medicine-man, stress, altogether, laid on this historic 
and sometimes by a chief. prophecy by the curious — as tradi- 

t Such, translated into Indian tions are not very reliable, 
phraseology, would be the popular 



INDIAN PRESENTS. OO^ 



to practise the same cruelties, until they again finished 
their cycle, and gave place to others, such as the laws of 
climate and population might determine. Warned by 
these ominous forebodings, the first appearance of the ex- 
pected oppressors found Montezuma on the alert to crush 
at once, if possible, the strangers whom ancient prophecy 
had designated as the fated destroyers of his race. If the 
Mayas of Yucatan* had escaped this foreordained cala- 
mity, by an apparently successful resistance to their land- 
ing, he, too, might do the same. If even unsuccessful, 
rather than allow a foothold to them, he was prepared to 
sacrifice all that might yet remain. Such were the de- 
signs of the prophet-emperor, even before the battle of 
Tobasco ;f the result of which left him but the last alter- 
native — the sacrifice of his capital. This is the key of 
our future narrative, which will embody those traditions 
in which all concur, — omit but the fabled visit of the 
Apostle Thomas ; and we shall endeavor also to account 
for the striking resemblance of the emblems and religious 
ceremonies portrayed upon the Central American ruins, 
and those used and practised by the Spaniards. 

We designated the discovery of an antique civilization 
in Yucatan as the second great event in the history of 
America. We now reach the third, the beginning of the 
war, which ended in the conquest of Mexico. There was, 
of course, no sincerity on either side, in the negotiations 

* The successful resistance of unexpectedly favorable result for the 

the Indians of Yucatan to the land- Spanish arms. It was this success 

ing of Cordova and Grijalva, seemed that made Montezuma unwilling to 

to be well known to Montezuma. encounter them in open battle. 

f The battle of Tobasco had an 



INDIAN PRESENTS. 




sle of San Juan de Uloa 
of Sacrificios 



COETEZ S VOYAGE TO VEBA CRTJZ. 



that preceded the march to Mexico. The exchange of 
presents, usual on such occasions, fatally displayed the 
abundance of grain-gold in the country. The strange, 
even fantastic forms of some of the larger specimens of 
metal, appeared to the imaginative Spaniards to bear, as 
sometimes do the clouds, a remote resemblance to living 
things. On this slight foundation rests the reputed skill 
of the Indian workmen ; allowing somethmg for savage 
ingenuity in changing forms without fusion. The round 
gold plate having the size of a wagon-wheel, and the value 



THE RELIGION PROPAGATED BY SPANIARDS. 333 



of twenty thousand dollars^* never existed but in the 
fertile fancy of Cortez, while the beautiful feather-work, 
so glowingly described by Spanish authors, was that skilful 
arrangement of natural colors, in which savage surpasses 
civilized man — the very wildness of his combinations 
being in fact the ground of his superiority. 

The Indian, though always an adept in dissimulation, 
was overmatched when pitted against the Spaniard. After 
the exhibition that had been made of the mineral wealth 
of the country, no means but force could induce the 
adventurers to leave the coast. Still they had no objec- 
tion to spend awhile whole days in skilful efforts to mis- 
lead their savage hosts ; afterwards even boasting of their 
skill in falsehood. These labors were usually followed by 
an attempt to swerve the Indian from his simple worship. 
Gold was really the only god the Spaniards knew", though 
the adoration of the Virgin and cross was his religion.-^ 
Whether the day's chief performance was tragedy or 
comedy, the Indian wondered at the sameness of the after- 
piece. If we credit Diaz,J Montezuma's ambassadors 
inquired why they humbled themselves before that pole, 

* Diaz, vol. I., page 90. stitute religion. But that the con- 

f It has become very common science of no good person may bo 

among Protestants to use the word . wounded by the apparent levity with 

religion, as synonymous with Godli- which we use these words, we shall 

ness. Nothing could be more inap- italicize them in all cases. We use 

propriate. We are compelled to use them with no greater levity than the 

it, as well as the word piety, in their people of the countries where these 

proper sense, viz., as relating exclu- words properly belong. Among Pro- 

sively to externals, having nothing to testants there are no things sacred, 

do with " heart-faith." only sacred ideas ; yet the author has 

We are considering a system into been inconsiderately charged with 

which faith does not enter ; one in levity, in speaking of tilings sacred, 
which outward ceremonials alone con- % Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 88. 



334 INDIAN IDOLATRY AND CANNIBALISM. 



meaning the cross, whereupon Father Olmedo was directed 
to describe the substance of the Spanish creed. " He then 
proved their idols were useless things, evil spirits, which 
fled away from the presence of the cross."* The priest 
having concluded, Cortez, according to the same authority, 
made also an exhibition of his skill in this work of 
proselytism. 

We have already referred to the numerous histories of 
the conquest, and shown them all, as simply changes 
rung upon one narrative. Our duty, however, is to 
sift them for what truth they may contain, and not to 
reject only because it is doubtful, but for the most sub- 
stantial reasons. The fabulous picture writings, and 
alledged idolatrous sacrifices, are early introduced by the 
Conquistador into his narrative ; but cannibalism is not 
charged until after the night retreat, and when at 
Tepeacaf or Securidad-de-Frontere he first introduced his 
system of extermination or slavery. The new ordinances, 
for the protection of the Indians, were already in force, 
and the Hieronomite brothers at San Domingo, to see they 
were not violated, while Las Casas was recognised as the 
public prosecutor, under the title of " Protector of the 
Indians."! ^^ justify an open violation of the law, Cortez 
accused the Indians of rebellion and cannibalism. Diaz, 

* Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 94. order to strike terror into the Chu- 

f Folsom's Cortez, p. 172. lulans." — Ibid. 

"Besides having murdered the J This proved in the end to be 

Spaniards, and rebelled against your but a naked title. He was allowed 

Majesty, these people eat human flesh the utmost latitude of denunciation; 

— a fact so notorious that I have not and that was about all. Little prac- 

taken the trouble to send your Ma- tical good at the time appeared ; but 

jesty any proof of it. I "^as also led it ended in a settled Indian policy, 

to make slaves of these people, in which has proved superior to our own. 



INDIAN IDOLATRY AND CANNIBALISM. 



who invented the pietif^ and morality of the expedition in 
the most approved style for the Spanish market, exhibits 
him, as we have seen, as much the missionary as the 
adventurer, and introduces the three charges, idolatry,^ 
human sacrifice, and cannibalism, in their most revolting 
forms, at an earlier date than his alleged master. The 
reason is transparent ; Cortez had sent his first despatches 
before resolving upon his future course, while Diaz and 
the historians, with the whole case before them, introduced 
their libels in the proper place. Thus Diaz accounts for 
the resolution of Montezuma, in treating with Cortez, 
while at the sea-shore, by alleging the commands of his 
two favorite idols, the god of hell and the god of war, " to 
whom he [Montezuma] daily sacrificed some young child- 
ren, that they might disclose what he should do with us. 
His intention was to take us prisoners, if we would not 
re-embark, and employ some to educate children, while 
the others were to be sacrificed. For his idol gods, as we 
afterwards discovered, advised him not to listen to Cortez, 
and ,to take no notice of what we had sent him word con- 
cerning the cross and the figure of the blessed Virgin. "{ 

* We here repeat, that we use The only real difficulties are the 

the word piety as relating solely to small allegorical clay idols, lately 

external duties ; nor can it be used found at Mexico. These may have 

as synonymous with godliness, with- been brought from the places of 

out an abuse of language and confu- sepulture in Yucatan as curiosities, 

sion of ideas. ' and thrown into the ditch by order 

t We have hesitated to take this of an Inquisitor ; or they may have 

broad ground, of denying altogether been Spanish manufactured antiqui- 

the idolatry of the Aztecs. But there ties, thrown away for want of a 

are so many difSculties in the way, market. At all events, they do not 

if we make them an exception to the form a sufficient basis for a charge of 

whole body of the aborigines, that we Indian idolatry. 
are driven to this position, after re- % Diaz, vol. I., page 95. 
examining all the evidence. 



336 REAL AND APOCRYPHAL PRESENTS. 



So childish was the fiction invented to account for the 
rupture with Montezuma's agents at the place of debarka- 
tion. Yet this gross fabrication acquu-ed credence under 
the Spanish system of literary despotism, and was dis- 
seminated among other European nations, ignorant of 
Indian character. 

But we must go back to the stately embassy of 
Montezuma's great Lord Teuchille; — and who more 
stately than the inhabitants of the forest ? The reported 
magnitude of his apocryphal present was in perfect 
keeping with his fictitious rank and retinue. Besides 
the golden plate, resembling a wagon-wheel, valued at 
twenty thousand dollars, another larger in size, and of 
massive silver, is described, representing the moon, with 
rays and other figures. That a soldier's casque or helmet, 
lent to the Indians, should be returned, filled with grain- 
gold, of the value of three thousand dollars, is not an 
improbable event, and one at that time of the greatest 
importance, as it demonstrated the existence of rich 
washings in the country. "Among other thmgs," says 
Diaz, "there were also thirty golden ducks, exactly 
resembling the living bird, and of splendid workmanship ; 
further, figures resembling lions, dogs, and apes ; likewise 
ten chains with lockets, all of gold, and of the most 
costly workmanship ; a bow with the string and twelve 
arrows ; and two staffs, five palms in length, like those 
used by the justices, all cast of the purest gold [!] further- 
more they brought small cases containing the most 
beautiful green feathers, blended with gold and silver, 
and fans similarly worked ; every species of game cast in 



PICTURE WRITINGS. 



gold. There were alone about thirty packages of cotton 
[maguey] stuffs, variously manufactured and interworked 
with variegated feathers. When the great caciques 
Quintalbor and Teuchille [the last an Indian runner,*] 
handed over these presents to Cortez, they begged him to 
accept them, in the same friendly disposition with which 
their monarch sent them." This is a description of that 
famous present of Montezuma, which for centuries was 
represented as little short of a wonder of the world. The 
American reader, stripping it of all exaggeration, will 
find it represents a very rich gift of crude gold, and 
thirty packages of native stuffsf wrought with quills and 
feathers. Want of familiarity with Indian characteristics, 
and a general proneness to the wonderful, has misled us 
hitherto. 

This present was preceded hy those pictorial scenes, 
which elicited equal astonishment in Europe, and with 
still less reason. When Cortez landed Montezuma sent 
runners J — called great lords by the same author — to 

* Diaz, vol. I., page 87. sun to dry ; the sap which has been 
f Indians Manufacturing Cloth, so thoroughly pressed out from among 
— " The end of the piece of bark was the fibres by the beating, soon be- 
laid over the end of a smoothly barked conies dissipated by the sun, and the 
log ; and they commenced beating it cloth is left with quite a woolly feel, 
with mallets, beginning at the corner and is painted in figures to suit the 
and striking diagonally the piece to fancy of the wearer. By his own 
the middle, where the mallet was peculiar process it is cut out to form 
turned to the same angle at the other a very simple garment, and the In- 
comer. They beat the bark regu- dian is dressed in a fancy-colored 
larly along. The fibres spread out, shirt, which reaches below his knees." 
and the piece two feet wide was — Valley of the Amazon, \o\.ll.,^s.ge 
beaten out one foot more, to the thick- 211, Report of Lieut. Gibbon to Navy 
ness of stout pilot-cloth. After all Department. 

is beaten out, it is rolled up. The % " After this personage had taken 

cloth is afterwards spread out in the his departure, we learnt that he was 
22 



CORTEZ APPOINTED CAPTAIN-GENERAL. 



ascertain the object of his visit; these it would seem 
undertook to aid the memory, in reporting such unusual 
appearances, by rude sketches on bits of maguey. This 
little incident, aided by the magnifying powers of Cortez, 
grew into picture writing, which, as already shown, in an 
after generation led to the famous forgeries of the monk 
Pietro, and they to much speculation among the learned. 
The most important incident is the simple one of the 
soldier's casque. It is thus stated in the narrative of 
Diaz.* " One of our men had a casque, which was 
partly gilt. Teuchille, who was much more enlightened 
than many of his companions [being chief runner,] 
remarked, when his eyes fell upon it, that it bore a great 
resemblance to a helmet which belonged to their most 
ancient forefathers, &c., and now adorned the head of 
their war-god." Was it to some Phoenician casque, 
portrayed on a ruined temple wall, that he alluded ? If 
so the runner, who often bore messages to the hot country, 
would naturally notice the likeness, and associate in his 
mind the strangers just arrived with the traditions 
relating to the past. It is but a trifle in itself; but, as one 
of a long series, well worthy of preserving. 

And now a great political farce was enacted amid the 
drifting sand-hills, where stands the present city of Vera 
Cruz. It was done to give a color of legality to an 
expedition, otherwise purely piratical, and which could 

not only a distinguished statesman, presents." — Bei'nal Diaz, \o\. I., page 

but also the most nimble pedestrian 89. 

at Montezuma's court. He did in- Think of a great ambassador, run- 
deed use the utmost expedition to ning at full speed, to report the result 
bring his monarch information, and of his mission ! 
hand over to him the paintings and * Diaz, vol. I., page 89. 



CORTEZ MOVES TO SEMPOALLA. 331 



have no hope of rojal pardon, but in complete success. 
Velasquez himself^ a subordinate to the government of 
San Domingo, had no authority to fit out expeditions, 
except for purposes of traffic. To form a colony on the 
Spanish main required a royal charter, to which the 
present party made no pretensions. But, to blind them- 
selves to the criminal steps they were taking, these armed 
brigands resolved them into a municipality according to 
the forms of the Spanish law, and immediately after, 
nominated their leader, Cortez, to an office not municipal, 
but of exclusively royal appointment — Captain-General ; 
by them understood to include also the powers of an 
Adelantado, as ample as those possessed by Columbus 
himself. Thus furnished with the shadow of authority, 
Cortez, after the customary affectation of reluctance,* 
assumed command, and immediately began his prepara- 
tions for a war of conquest. Charles Y., though he 
pardoned the irregularity of the enterprise, and accepted 
the sovereignty it had added to his dominions, took good 
care to suppress the letter w^hich contained a recital of 
the farce with which it commenced, and the means by 
which Cortez acquired his title and his office. 

The Aztecs were now to suffer the bitter consequences 
of their own ambition, an evil to which all conquering 
powers are liable, — an alliance of the enemy without to 
the other enemy within. One subjugated tribe, the 
Quiahuitzlan,-|- no sooner discovered the existence of a 
breach between the Spaniards and their masters, than 
they invited the former to their village, and entered into 

"" Diaz, vol. I,, page 99, f Ibid., page 95. 



340 MISSIONARY ZEAL. 



alliance with them. An important foothold thus acquired, 
the encampment in the nominal town of Vera Cruz was 
at once abandoned, and the whole municipality moved 
northward in military array. It halted at the inter- 
vening village of Sempoalla, Cempoal of Cortez, who 
ultimately made it the expeditionary head-quarters, while 
the permanent encampment was on the little river, 
through whose gorge, Cerro Gordo, lies the ascent to the 
table-land. The perambulating town of Vera Cruz, how- 
ever, was located on the downs, two miles from Quiahuitz- 
lan.* From this new location, which we must designate 
as the oldest Vera Grwz, it was shortly after moved to the 
mouth of the Antigua river, and remained there for 
ninety years, the Gulf seaport of Mexico. The marquis 
of Monterey then restored it to the original place of 
debarkation, the present city of Vera Cruz.f The first 
fortress there, must not be confounded with that on the 
island of JJloa. The inhabitants of Sempoalla regarded 
the new comers as their deliverers from a cruel despotism. 
And here we learn a little more of those tales of human 
sacrifice, which so much excited the peculiar elements of 
Spanish 'pjety. The Spaniards were as rampant too, 
according to Diaz, in denouncing oppression, as the 
valorous Don Quixote, declaring "we were the vassals 
of the great emperor Charles, who had dominion over 
many kingdoms and countries, and who had sent us out 
to jedress wrongs wherever we came, punish the bad, 
and make known his commands, that human sacrifice 



* Diaz, vol. I., page 111. Cluclad de Vera Cruz. M. M. Lerdo 

t Apuenies Ristoricos de la Heroica de Tejado. Mexico, 1851. 



FLEET MOVED TO OLDEST VERA CRUZ. 



341 



should no longer be continued. To all this was added a 
good deal about our holy religion."* 



oQji'abTiitzlan 

Oil 

! OTlest or 1st town of Vera Cr^i 




Cruz (Antiqua) or 2nd 
location of lliat town 



CORTEZ S MARCH TO OLDEST VERA CRUZ. 



In the mean time, the shipping, having abandoned its 
anchorage under San Juan de Uloa, coasted northward to 
the little harbor, which after all w^as only a bight in a lee- 
shore, four miles below Quiahuitzlan, where the stranding 
of the vessels took place. The little island of Uloa, how- 
ever, always remained a shipping station, on account of 
the protection it afforded against the north wind. The 



Diaz, vol. I., page 105. 



342 EXPEDITION TO TZINPAN TZINCO. 



fortress upon the island is of modern date, and was not 
built until after the sack of Vera Cruz by the bucaneers.* 

After a rude fortress had been constructed for the 
colony, Cortez made pretence to send away the partisans 
of Velasquez, but when they were about to sail he suffered 
himself to be constrained by his most devoted adherents 
to forbid their departure. A march to Tzinpantzinco, 
probably Cerro Gordo, with the Sempoallans, as auxili- 
aries, was made at the suggestion of their Indian allies. 
Their pretence was the presence of an Aztec garrison at 
that place. On his arrival at the town, situated in a most 
rugged defile, Cortez found he had been deceived by the 
Sempoallans, and that their real object in soliciting him 
to make this expedition was a local quarrel then existing 
between them. Before returning, however, he was for- 
tunate enough to effect a reconciliation between the 
belligerents, and add Tzinpantzinco to his alliance. On 
this occasion was exhibited a touch of rigid discipline. 
A soldier named Mora took some fowls from an Indian 
hut, which coming to the knowledge of Cortez, a rope was 
put around the fellow's neck, who would have been hung, 
when Alvarado interceded, and he escaped. f The effect 
of this act is thus described by Diaz : " Although Indians, 
they readily perceived what a good and holy thing is 
justice, and that the declaration of our having come into 
these countries to put an end to all oppression, perfectly 
agreed with his conduct on our entry into Tzinpantzinco ; 
they therefore became more united to us."-}- 

By this politic course the whole hot country, between 
the table land and the sea, was brought into subjugation 

* Apuentes Hisioricos de Vera Cruz. f Diaz, vol. I., page 118. 



CORTEZ AND OTHERS OBTAIN WOMEN. 343 



without the use of force; and an enduring friendship 
established among the Indian villages and the Spaniards. 
The real cause of success with the new confederacy was 
the common hatred the tribes of this region bore to the 
Aztecs, and their dread of Montezuma. By his adroit- 
ness Cortez succeeded in widening the breach already 
existing. He first persuaded his allies to arrest Monte- 
zuma's tax-gatherers, and deliver them to him. In this 
he had a further object ; for, no sooner had his suggestion 
been carried out by the Sempoallans, than he represented 
to the prisoners, that their rescue from certain death was 
due to him ; after which he sent them secretly to Monte- 
zuma, with many fine speeches. 

The new confederacy being wholly dependent on Cortez 
for protection against the ofiended Aztecs, proposed to 
cement their new friendship by a matrimonial alliance. 
For this purpose they presented the Spaniards with eight 
young girls. Puerto Carrero, who, it appears, had formerly 
eloped from Medellin with another man's wife,* and who 
had received Dona Marina as his share of the women dis- 
tributed at Tobasco, obtained the most attractive in the 
new apportionment. Indeed, there seems to have been a 
community of wives between this favored soldier and his 
commander; for the latter was avowedly the father of 
Dona Marinas children. Cortez, as his nominal share, 
received the daughter of the village cacique ; only remark- 
able for her ugliness. He accepted her, however, with 
every appearance of delight."]" The six remaining were 
distributed among the other soldiers. Before any were 

* Diaz, vol. I., page 130. f l^^d., page 123. 



344 CORTEZ' ZEAL FOR RELIGION. 



delivered, however, to their new masters, they were con- 
verted, nominally, to the Romish faith, by a perversion 
of the ordinance of baptism, and the addition of much 
ceremony. The strangest feature in this is, that, although 
the revolt from Montezuma was predicated on the in- 
humanity of his agents, in appropriating to themselves 
the wives and daughters of these people, if they were 
handsome, without ceremony, here appears to be the very 
counterpart of that wrong they were in arms to repel. 
Cortez consoled them, as well as he could, by means of the 
interpreters. He promised and assured them he would 
put an end to such oppression and ill-usage.* 

These affairs concluded, Cortez assumed the character 
of a missionary, and undertook to reform the religion of 
the Sempoallans, that is, according to Diaz. The horrid 
j)ictures of human sacrifice are here further intensified 
by him, and the charge of cannibalism added. The selling 
of human flesh in the market -|* by a people who had no 
shambles or circulating medium as a common article of 
food, is here introduced to magnify, it w^ould seem, the 
services of Cortez, in that he set up the image of the 
Virgin and cross, in places heretofore occupied with, not 
only an apocryphal idol-worship, but with such barbarous 
practices. As to what this dissemination of Spanish piety 
amounted, we learn, in the following paragraphs translated 
by Lockhart. It needed but a Cervantes to place 
in its proper light, this expedition, undertaken, according 
to Diaz, for the spread of religion and the redress of griev- 
ances. Cortez is represented as saying to the Indians, the 

* Diaz, vol. I., page 107. f Ibid., page 120, 



CORTEZ' ZEAL FOR RELIGION. 345 



reason that induced his emperor to send them there was, that 
they should abandon their accursed idols, abolish human 
sacrifice, and abstain from kidnapping ! " He therefore 
must beg of them to erect crosses, like this, in their towns, 
and in their temples, and also the figure of the holy Yirgin, 
with her most excellent son, then God would bestow 
blessings on them."* Cortez now lost all patience and 
answered " He had already told them several times they 
should not sacrifice to these monsters, who were nothing 
but deceivers and liars."-|* " They had scarcely done 
speaking, when more than fifty of us began to mount the 
steps of the temple. We tore down the idols from their 
pediment, broke them to pieces, and flung them piecemeal 
down the steps. "J " When the idols were burnt, Cortez 
said everything that was edifying to the Indians, by 
means of our interpreters. Instead of their idols he 
would give them our own blessed Virgin and saints, the 
mother of Jesus Christ, in whom we believed, and to 
whom we prayed. "§ "A regulation was also made, that 
the copal of the country should be used instead of our 
usual incense. The principal caciques of the district and 
village attended mass."|| Then followed the baptism of 
the eight w^omen, before alluded to, after an edifying 
discourse had preceded the ceremony. The missionary 
department of Cortez' labors, beyond the erection of a few 
rude chapels for his soldiers, having doubtless been 
invented in the generation succeeding the conquest, serves 

* Diaz, vol. I., page 94. § Ihid., page 122. 

t Ibid., page 120. || Ibid., page 123. 

X Ibid., page 121. 



346 PRESENT TO CHARLES V. 



to show what were the duties of a champion of the cross, 
in the estimation of the church dignitaries who supervised 
the writing of history ; and how little they differed from 
(Phoenician) pagan rites, the reader can judge. 

Before advancing to the table-land, we must look at the 
affairs of the little municipality of Vera Cruz. At a 
meeting of our adventurers, it was resolved to send a 
present and a letter to Charles V., and set forth a history 
of the operations thus far ; concluding with a prayer that 
his majesty would be pleased to recognise the enterprise, 
and confer the command on Cortez, " This prayer was 
accompanied by such highflown praise of Cortez — how 
faithfully he had served his majesty — that we elevated 
him to the very skies."* "After the letter was quite 
finished Cortez desired to read it, and when he found how 
faithfully the account was drawn up, and himself so 
highly praised, he was vastly pleased."* It was on the 
26th July, 1519, that the vessel sailed from San Juan de 
Uloa, having on board Puerto Garrero and Montejo as mes- 
sengers, with some specimens of the kind of sacrifices the 
Indians offered to their gods, in the persons of several cap- 
tives alleged to have been taken from a cage, in which 
they were fattening for this use ! The vessel having a 
favorable wind, escaped that sent by Velasquez to inter- 
cept her, and arrived in Spain, whither we must follow. 

We must, however, bespeak attention to a statement 
in the commencement of this history, wherein it is shown 
that one reason why these despatches passed uncontra- 
dicted was, that, the whole expedition being involved in 

* Diaz, vol. I., page 126. 



COUNCIL OF THE INDIAS ON CORTEZ. 347 



the crime of its leader, the misrepresentations contained 
in their overwrought missives enured equally to the bene- 
fit of all. Cortez had so artfully played his part as to 
appear from the beginning to have acted almost under 
constraint. The letters had also this other advantage : 
the events they described occurred before the art of print- 
ing had become common in Spain. Indeed it is claimed 
by one annotator — a no less personage than the cardinal- 
archbishop Lorenzano, that the despatches of Cortez 
were the first works printed in Seville, and perchance in 
all Spain. 

Bishop Fonseca, who then presided in the Council of 
the Indias, was seemingly a strict constructionist, and, 
with little love to the wild adventurers who were swarm- 
ing to the West Indies, was as little loved by them. His 
relations to Las Casas were equally ungracious. A rigid 
disciplinarian in such a post was perilously situated ; and 
the wonder is not that he fell at last, but that he main- 
tained his post so long. His treatment of Columbus re- 
mains a blot upon his character, but how much of guilt 
there was in the other charges brought against him we 
have now no means of judging. Merit has, generally, 
little to do with the eminence of a man in Spain, and 
demerit as little with his fall. There is no lack there, as 
elsewhere, of complaints, whenever it is whispered that a 
functionary is growing in disfavor with his master. If he 
is dismissed, that of itself, by the world, is considered a 
sufficient proof of every allegation. In the present case 
the action of Fonseca was clearly correct. When he 
charged Cortez and his party with high treason, he sim- 



348 THE EMPEROR FAVORS CORTEZ. 



ply asserted a principle of Spanish law* But there was 
another difficulty : the slight irregularity, of which Puerto 
Carrero had been guilty in eloping with another man's 
wife, when he left Spain, was known to the bishop ; and 
for that offence he was now to answer. Dangers environ 
even ambassadors when too much addicted to gallantries. 
The proprietor of Dona Marina, " the most distinguished 
female in all the Indias," the equally lucky possessor of 
the dusky belle of Sempoalla, and the representative of 
New Spain at the court of Charles Y., was thus thrown 
into prison for an escapade he had perhaps forgotten. 

The party of Cortez had, however, better success with 
the young emperor, in Flanders, to whom copies of their 
swaggering letters were sent, with a list also of the curi- 
ous presents seized by the bishop. Up to the time the 
letters — for there were others besides the joint one — were 
written, it will be recollected nothing beyond the three 
skirmishes at Tobasco had occurred, except the alliance 
with one Indian village of the coast, and the conversion 
of some twenty-six native females — squaivs. Whatever 
grain-gold had been obtained was sent on to give empha- 
sis to the letters. Yet Diaz tells us, " His majesty was 
so highly pleased with what we had done, that the dukes, 
marquises, earls, and other cavaliers, for days together, 
spoke but of Cortez, our courageous behavior, and our 

* The King of Spain claimed as a Elizabeth resisted this claim ; but 

royal domain all of America, not by within the jurisdiction of Spain this 

virtue of discovery, but in virtue of a title could not be contested, 

grant from Alexander VII., the Bor- The levying vs-ar, under such cir- 

gia. In construction of law, Cortez cumstances, without royal license, 

and his company were trespassers on was clearly treasonable, 
royal demesne. It is true, that Queen 



ATTEMPTED PIRACY. 349 



conquests ! and of the riches we had sent over."* The 
emperor at length mformed the agents that he would him- 
self shortly visit Spain, to investigate the matter more 
closely, and would then reward them fitly. This was the 
beginning of the end of Fonseca. 

We return to New Spain, where, at this time, we find 
Cortez and his associates attempting a most unquestion- 
able act of piracy, in the seizure of a vessel belonging to 
Francisco de Qaray, which, pursuing a lawful voyage, had 
unsuspectingly anchored near their retreat. Luckily 
they were not successful in their intent, but the very un- 
dertaking throws light upon the motives of the adven- 
turers. Clearly they would not have incurred the risk 
attending such a crime, but from a desperate necessity to 
renew their communications with the civilized world. 
No other incentive could have been sufficient. 

A little before this essay the destruction of the vessels 
which brought the expedition to New Spain, occurred. 
Both Cortez f and Diaz agree they were stranded on a 
lee-shore. But both claim it was voluntary. Cortez avers 
it was his own act ; Diaz, that it was suggested by his 
companions. The event has been the subject of eloquent 
eulogies for centuries. Among these Robertson J is, of 
course, pre-eminent. The motives assigned for the act 
were, firstly, the suppression of a mutinous spirit among 
the men, and, secondly, the severe necessity which called 
for the use of the naval armament on land. Are these 



* Diaz, vol. I., page 131. % Pillars of Hercules, page 95. See 

t Folsom's Cortez, page 41. Diaz, also Robertson's Am. 
vol. I., page 134. 



150 DESTRUCTIOISr OF THE VESSELS. 



objects sucn as would justify so rash an act, one that cut 
the invaders off not only from retreat, but from the pos- 
sibility of succor ? After its capture, Gortez did not de- 
stroy the fleet of Narvaez, though the danger of mutiny 
was then doubly imminent ! Even the loss of all his 
materiel, in the disastrous night retreat, when he had not 
only to refit his land expedition, but to create a flotilla 
on the laguna, did not tempt him to such a step. We 
have witnessed not only hereabout, but elsewhere, upon 
this tideless shore, wrecks by the grounding of vessels at 
anchor, as stated in a former chapter. A coral bottom is 
such poor holding-ground, that any empty craft, as were 
those of Cortez, are liable to this disaster, even during 
the light gales of summer. A far larger fleet than his 
has many times been thus ruined in the very roadstead 
of Yera Cruz. The story of Tarik burning his boats at 
Gibraltar was familiar to all Spaniards, and, admitting an 
" act of God" had destroyed their shipping, it would be 
natural in them to turn that very misfortune into a cause 
of self-laudation. This is so perfectly Spanish, that with- 
out proof either way, the probabilities are against its 
having been voluntary. It must not either be forgotten 
that the vessels were not only exposed to the prevailing 
winds, and the dangers of a lee-shore, but also navigated 
by inexperienced seamen. If, then, they once grounded, 
they became fixtures, until the sea-worms and the winds 
accomplished their destruction. As the Spaniards had no 
barometer, to indicate an approaching change, before they 
dreamed of danger, it might have been upon them, and 
the hulls of their vessels upon the beach. 



MARCH TO THE INTERIOR. 



351 




Up to this time the companions of Cortez had been 
quartered at Sempoalla, and at the rude fortification still 
further at the north, which we have designated as " The 
oldest Yera Cruz." The sea-board secure, and the fortress 
at their new location fast approaching completion, a march 
to the table-land was resolved on, and the whole force, 
saving a small garrison, was soon climbing the rugged de- 
file of Cerro Gordo, to the plateau of Jalapa. The march 
is now both difficult and toilsome, though art has created a 
carriage-road along the face of the precipitous cliif.* But 

* The National Road of Mexico company of merchants known as the 
^A•as conceived and executed by a Consulado de Vera Cruz. It is about 



SCENERY PECULIAR TO AMERICA. 



what must it have been in the time of Cortez ? As an 
Indian trail constituted the only path for a distance of 
more than forty miles up the pass, the fatigue may be 
easily conceived. Besides, they were in the midst of the 
rainy season, the month of x^ugust, when the mountain 
rivulets were swollen, and the sides of the precipices wet 
and slippery. To have penetrated these defiles under 
such circumstances, embarrassed with horses, cannon, 
arms, and materiel, was really a great achievement. The 
author of " Bernal Diaz" says the march to Jalapa was 
accomplished in one day.* A proof that he never saw 
the country, and that his work is only a compilation, 
most likely from Gomora, corrected in part by Las Casas. 
His railing at both seems a cunning device, to cover the 
imposture. Cortez makes the ascent the work of three 
days, and says he did not reach Sienchimaten-f until the 
fourth day, the shortest time in which such a march could 
possibly be made. 

In Cortez there are many mole-hills magnified into 
mountains ; but on the other hand, there are mountains 
that have been passed over as mere mole-hills, because 
the original narrative was written by a true soldier, but 
for a European market. Those who afterwards obtained 
permission to write were either ignorant of the country, 
or restricted to the original. But whatever the reason, 

ninety miles in length, and cost celebrated gorge to Jalapa, and there 

$3,000,000. From Vera Cruz it runs it attains, at a distance of sixty miles 

northward, often within sight of the from Vera Cruz, an elevation of 4264 

Gulf, until it nearly reache-i tie feet above the sea. — Wilson's Mexico. 

Cerro Gordo, where it turns inland, * Diaz, vol. I., page 139. 

and then passes upward through that f Cortez' Despatches, page 45. 



ITS EXTRAORDINARY BEAUTY. 



no efforts were made to present the simple facts of the 
case. The first object was to make an impression in 
Spain, and that none of the subsequent historians seems 
to have understood. We have never ceased to admire the 
fortitude displayed by the Spaniards in surmounting the 
mountain ridges they crossed, in their toilsome march to 
the capital. What we have said of the route to Jalapa 
is equally true of all the subsequent ascents ; for Jalapa 
is but half-way up the barrier of the table-land. In the 
summer season these mountains are clothed with their 
most beautiful attire. But as this is a kind of beauty 
hardly to be appreciated in Europe, it is passed in silence. 
It is so in all Spanish books on America. They are the 
reflections of European ideas. That which is American, 
is either distorted to conform to foreign patterns, or 
passed without a word. Neither Cortez nor Diaz notices 
the unrivalled beauty of the country through which the 
road lay, though it was, as we have said, the very time 
when Nature wore her richest costume. 

We will not imitate their want of taste, but here delay 
amid the gorgeous beauties, which the route from the sea- 
shore to the first plateau presents. The shore is a hill of 
shifting sand, driven in by the winds. A tropical marsh 
succeeds, presenting a striking contrast to the arid waste 
just traversed. The sands give place to the richest of 
vegetation. There is that strange combination, so often 
witnessed in these latitudes, in which natural branches, 
creepers, vines, and parasites mingle into one wild con- 
glomerate — a mass of foliage of many distinct kinds 
matted and mixed together. It is all untamed — yet the 

23 



354 RAPIDITY OF THE MARCH. 



graceful festoons of the creepers, swinging from branch to 
branch, and the shady arbors they form, have the regu- 
larity of a garden.* Almost as it was when Cortez wrote, 
it still exists. Through this realm of beauty the Span- 
iards held their toilsome march, day after day, yet is it 
all unnoticed and unsung by their authors, while they 
have exhausted their vocabulary of superlatives in de- 
scribing the fabulous court and harem of Montezuma, a 
pattern for which existed in the tales of the Arabians. 
The romances of chivalry, perhaps, afforded another rea- 
son — neither Rolando, the Paladin, nor Amadis de Gaul, 
the favorites of Diaz, as of Don Quixote, had ever pene- 
trated into the region of the tropics, therefore their beauty 
remained unsung. 

Through these scenes they ascended to the first plateau, 
a spot more beautiful, even, than the road to it. But 
Cortez did not linger. Though kindly received by the 
natives, it was not advisable to tarry. Behind was the pes- 
tilential atmosphere of the hot country. Before, the moun- 
tain, the desert, and an enemy, who intervened between 
him and that island capital, to which he was directing his 
steps. Hesitation or dilatory movement has disastrous 
effects in Indian war, while a bold front and promptness 
tend materially to success. An Indian military expedi- 
tion is rather a run than a march ; so was it ever with 
Cortez, excepting in retreat. Celerity of movement was 
his most striking characteristic. The distance from Sem- 
poalla to the table-land he traversed in but little more 
time than that required by an Indian war-party. His 

* Wilson's Mexico. 



REAL MERIT OF CORTEZ. 355 



great superiority was in this ; his intimate knowledge of 
Indian character and modes of attack. 

His Spanish eulogists, in ignorance, overlooked 'this 
merit, the one that made him invulnerable among his wild 
assailants, and almost always insured him victory. The 
writer of Bernal Diaz, as usual, shows such total igno- 
rance of the character and tactics of the enemy as com- 
pels us to follow Cortez in every movement of the cam- 
paign. Cortez writes as an actor, the other as a compiler. 
Cortez never appears surprised, never off his guard 
for a moment. Always prepared for action, he is always 
victorious. To a watchful leader, the superiority of his 
weapons insured this result, though in no instance did 
Cortez exhibit remarkable personal courage, according to 
the European standard. Equal to his antagonists in strat- 
egy, he continually boasts of overreaching them in duplicity. 
Yet he is the authority we must follow in marches and 
countermarches. There he has no inducement to exagge- 
rate, and speaking from personal knowledge of the ground, 
he does not appear to have done so. It is when he comes 
to descant on the number of his enemies, and the magni- 
tude of his victories, that he assumes the Munchausen.* 

Burthened, as we have seen, he crossed the first plateau, 
and commenced the arduous task of climbing the barrier- 
mountain of Perote, through a pass which, Spaniard-like, 
he blasphemously named " The Pass of God,"f not by 

* Itwas the popular belief in Spain, f "This will sound to Protestant 
atthis time, that the West Indies, viz., readers something like horrible bias- 
Spanish America, was as densely popu- phemy ; but it must be borne in mind 
lated as the East Indies. Hence there that the God of the Romanist is an 
was no difficulty in finding credence for entirely different idea from the spirit- 
extravagant numbers of the enemy, ual God whom we worship. The 



356 CORTEZ CROSSING THE HIGH MOUNTAIN. 



the stone road, which the skill of modern engineers has 
constructed, but by intricate Indian pathways, over its 
rugged heights, through a country destitute of inhabit- 
ants, and indeed scarcely habitable, from the sterility of 



devout Protestant who recognises but 
one Being worthy of adoration, vene- 
ration, and worship, never ventures 
to mention any of the names by which 
He is known but with the profound- 
est reverence. The Romanist, on the 
other hand, has a host of objects 
which he deems worthy of adoration, 
and seems to have cheapened the ar- 
ticle by multiplying it. His senses 
are all esercised in his religion^ and, 
as a natural consequence, he con- 
cludes the Almighty enjoys those 
exhibitions that give him the great- 
est pleasure. 

" Romanists worship him by per- 
forming a pantomime of the life and 
suffering of Christ, which is called the 
mass, and seek to propitiate him by 
offering the body of his Son in sacri- 
fice. They bestow upon God gifts of 
jewels of gold and of the fruits of the 
earth ; and as He passes through their 
streets in the form of a wafer, as they 
believe, the soldiers present arms, beat 
the drum, and discharge cannon, as to 
an earthly prince. Though our Sa- 
viour (Santo Christo) heads the calen- 
dar of intercessors between God and 
man, He is seldom invoked, though 
they often honor him by giving their 
children his name. As they have 
conferred upon a multitude of their 
saints the supernatural powers of God, 
they have necessarily brought God 
himself down to earth. If I might 
be pardoned the expression, I should 
say, they treat him and his well- 



beloved Son with a loving intimacy. 
Their worship is substantially mate- 
rialism, more or less gross, according 
to its distance from or its proximity 
to a Protestant population. There 
is no blasphemy, according to their 
system, in naming their shops after 
the Holy Ghost, a horse-stable after 
" the Precious Blood," &c., though I 
could never hear them mentioned or 
see them without having my Protest- 
ant notions shocked, while I equally 
shocked their feelings by refusing to 
kneel to the Host, and slipping out 
of the way to avoid it. Nor could I 
exhibit the least reverence to their 
religious emblems without committing 
what in me would be an act of idol- 
atry, the two systems being so diame- 
trically opposite that one cannot go a 
step toward the other without break- 
ing over a fundamental doctrine of 
his own belief. God is an invisible 
Spirit, says the Protestant. God is a 
Spirit, answers the Romanist, but he 
daily assumes the form of a wafer, 
and traverses our streets, and in that 
form we most commonly worship him. 
Such is the antagonism that will ever 
be found in the world while man re- 
mains what he now is, ever divided 
between mentalism and materialism. 
Forms and names often differ, but 
these are the two ideas into which all 
the systems of devotion in the world 
resolve themselves, although abortive 
attempts are often made to combine 
them." — Mexico and its Beligion. 



CORTEZ CROSSING THE HIGH MOUNTAIN. 



its soil, its want of water, and the coldness of its climate. 
" God knows," says Cortez, " how much our people suf- 
fered there from hunger and thirst, especially during a 
violent storm of hail and rain we encountered, when I 
thought many would have perished with cold."* This 
picture of hardships and sufferings, endured in that lofty 
range, cannot have been a whit exaggerated. Upon the 
same heights we have encountered similar storms, during 
which the very animals seemed likely to perish. It is a 
polar region within the tropics. Through all these obsta- 
cles, however, the Spaniards toiled on until a defile, more 
difficult, indeed, but less formidable in appearance than 
the previous passage, was reached. Then they crossed 
an intervening valley, inhabited by tribes subjected to 
Montezuma, to enter upon a second more difficult than 
any in Spain. To this day those gorges might be closed 
by a handful of resolute men against an army. A 
Spaniard, who was with us while surveying one of them, 
could not repress his indignation at the Mexicans, for 
leaving them unguarded at the time of the American 
invasion. Here he remarked, with a sneer, the Ame- 
rican soldiers passed with their hands in their pockets. 
The summit reached, the Spaniards descended to the 
interior valleys fertilized by melting snows. 

Diaz minutely describes this fearful mountain transit, 
from Sochina on the plateau, to Texutla on the table- 
land, thus : " As they advanced the population ceased, 
and at the very first night they had excessive cold, with 
hail ; they were at the same time without food, and as 

* Cortez, page 45. Ibid., page 46. 



358 DiAz' ACCOUNT. 



the wind blew across the snow mountains, they shook 
again with the frost."* Indeed, he justly remarks, no 
one can wonder at this ; they had come so suddenly from 
the hot climate of Vera Cruz, and the neighboring coasts, 
into a cold country. At last they entered the territories 
of locotlan, and were as much pleased with this interior 
vale as with many a Spanish town, " on account of the 
many beautiful whitewashed houses, and other struc- 
tures." And so they appear to-day. The brush is now, 
as then, industriously applied to the outside, and though 
the buildings are still chiefly of that frail material, dried 
mud, they present a very neat and tidy appearance, and 
give a pretty correct idea of what an Indian town may 
have been in the time of Cortez. Here, too, Diaz intro- 
duces matter for the Spanish market, and Cortez is once 
more represented as preaching against human sacrifice, 
and the eating of human flesh ; f concluding his harangue 
with the solemn announcement, " We can do nothing 
further I think, than erect a cross. "J A curious conclu- 
sion to an exhortation, that contains the first suggestion 
of a God yet delivered to the Indians. Not a word this 
time, however, about the blessed Virgin, or the efficacy 
of her intercession. 

They were now nigh the desert of the table-land ; 

* Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 139. in his translation, though as inappro- 
f Ihid., page 141. priate as it would be to anglicize 
X We omit the word " gentlemen," the following from a French edition 
at the commencement of this speech of Shakspeare : — 
of Cortez, as it is a Spanish idiomati- " Monsieur Macbeth, Monsieur Mac- 
cism, and not usual in an English beth, prenez garde, Monsieur Mac- 
commander's address to his soldiers, duff." 
It is, however, retained by Lockhart, 



MARCH ACROSS THE BAD LAND. 359 



and four days of rest were allowed the wearied soldiers 
to refresh them in the fertile valleys around, before 
the march was resumed, across that dry and saline waste 
where water, to slake their thirst even, could not be 
found ; only tufts of stunted grass are scattered over this 
dreary expanse, which to this day is known by the 
expressive name of the bad land, mal pais. Here wolves 
and vultures thrive, and robbers levy contributions on 
passing travellers. It is a land of drought, and storms 
of sand, for the clouds that cross it discharge their moist- 
ure upon the adjacent mountains. Parties, however, who 
have passed through the hardships of the defiles, easily 
submit to the inconvenience of this change, as it is hardly 
a day's march to the Eye-of -Water, Ojo de Agua, a bubbling 
fountain, on its western border. And now, as we tread 
upon the frontiers of Tlascala, we must begin again our 
discourse of war. 



CHAPTER X. 

OPERATIONS IN TLASCALA. 

The Tlascala of Cortez, 360 — TIascala according to Diaz, 361 — Tlascala ac- 
cording to the historians, 362 —The impossibilities in Cortez' statements, 
362 — An unfortunate remark of Diaz, 364 — The facts in relation to Tlascala, 
365 — The real advantage of the Tlascalan alliance, 366 — Religious tolera- 
tion at Tlascala, 367 — The Tlascalans and their government, 368 — The 
campaign of Tlascala, 368 — First battle with the Tlascalans, 369 — Another 
great battle, 370 — The success of the Tlascalan war, 370 — The consumma- 
tion of the Tlascalan alliance, 371 — Cortez reforming the Indian religion, 
372— Cholula, 376— Was Quetzalcoatl the Apostle Thomas ? 378— The city 
of Cholula, 379 — Its political state and government, 380 — The simple truth 
about Cholula, 380 — The Cholula massacre, 382 — An ascent of the volcano, 
384 — Preparations for a march to Mexico, 386 — Cortez enters the valley of 
Mexico, 386— Cholula, 388. 

So far we have formed an indifferently correct narration 
of the achievements of the invaders, the ascent to the table- 
land, and march to Tlascala. In this we have followed 
Bernal Diaz, while he kept within the line of physical 
possibilities; when he overleaped them, we turned to 
Cortez. Aided by our own frequent journeys through 
that region, we have filled the gaps that remained with 
tolerable certainty. This natural method will be of no 
avail, however, in treating of Tlascala; there our two wit- 
nesses are at irreconcilable variance. The turning point 
in the history of the conquest is in this state, as it was 
the basis in all operations of the war. Cortez tells us* 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 61. 

(360) 



TLASCALA ACCORDING TO DIAZ. 361 



that Tlascala was a great and powerful republic, with a 
capital larger and more prosperous than Granada, at the 
time of its conquest, and much stronger, and much better 
supplied with the products of the earth, such as corn, and 
various kinds of vegetables, with fowls, game, fish, and 
other excellent articles of food ; and where, too, there was 
"a market in which more than thirty thousand people 
were engaged in buying and selling, besides many other 
merchants scattered about the city; containing also a 
great variety of articles, both of food and clothing, and 
all kinds of shoes for the feet, jewels of gold, and silver, 
and precious stones, and ornaments of feathers; all as 
well arranged as they possibly can be found in any pub- 
lic square in the world." If this statement is correct, 
then he has not overrated the magnificence of Monte- 
zuma, as that was confessedly the superior of Tlascala. 
It is by this vast scale Cortez measures the resources of 
the great states of the table-land — while Gomora, his 
chaplain, more extravagant, as usual, in his numerals, out- 
Herods even his master.* 

According to Diaz, the Tlascalans were so poor that 
the present they offered as a testimony of friendship to 

* Baron Munchausen. — Miss ries. His patron, the baron of those 
Brewster (daughter of Sir David), in days, wrote a book out-Heroding He- 
her " Letters from Cannes and Nice," rod, being a collection of still more 
says : — " Baron Munchausen is at marvellous adventures, for the pur- 
Nice. My father met him at a pic- pose of shaming the priest ; for which 
nic the other day, and heard from laudable design he was punished, by 
him the history of his celebrated having his own name held up to 
namesake. One of his ancestors had posterity as tlie story-teller par excel- 
a chaplain who was famous for lence!" This shows that it is dan- 
' drawing the long bow' — told, in fact, gerous to lie, even in jest. The Mun- 
the most false and extravagant sto- chausens are a Hanoverian family. 



362 IMPOSSIBILITIES IN CORTEZ' STATEMENTS. 



Cortez, had not the value of twenty dollars, and they ac- 
companied the gift with a speech, wherein they declared 
that Montezuma had stripped them of everything, and 
reduced them to the utmost poverty. Now, if we believe 
this, as Montezuma did not possess sufficient power wholly 
to subjugate Tlascala, notwithstanding its poverty-stricken 
condition, the real strength of that distinguished monarch 
was not very extraordinary. 

But the rule with our annalists has been to take the 
most extravagant statement, when there was a variance, 
and, suggesting some slight abatement, parade that one 
as evidence. To take the opposite course would be 
equally objectionable. The only correct rule is to sub- 
mit every narrative to the ordeal of proof; then, that 
which can be verified is to be adopted without hesitation, 
and that which cannot must be rejected, without regard- 
ing the number or rank of those it has misled. For 
this task not one of our predecessors had, before writing, 
qualified himself by an actual survey of the country. 
The lack of a qualification so indispensable is but poorly 
supplied by the polish of elegant periods. We have 
sought among all the previous chroniclers for some light 
upon this difficult question of Tlascala, but found only 
silvery sentences, or elegant selections from writers, igno- 
rant as themselves, on the subject-matter of their essays. 
For our purpose, then, the standard histories of the con- 
quest might as well be blank paper. 

The statements by Cortez of the population, wealth, 
civilization, and military power of Tlascala, are as utterly 



IMPOSSIBILITIES IN CORTEZ' STATEMENTS. 363 



fabulous as would be the history of some New England 
village fabricated from Moorish romances. He reports 
" a dry stone wall, nine feet high and twenty feet thick, 
enclosed Tlascala from mountain to mountain, a distance 
of six miles, through which he entered, between overlap- 
ping stone walls ;"* and he then inserts a representation of 
the alleged wall in a page of his despatches, of which the 
following is a^c simile: — 




Of this wall we were unable to find a vestige, for this 
simple reason — ^it never existed. We go further, we deny 
that Cortez was attacked by four or five thousand Indians 
on passing it,* as Tlascala, by the laws of population, 
could never have maintained as many hundreds, shut in, 
as he states it, by impassable metes and bounds of known 
limits. Of course the hundred thousand f that subse- 
quently assailed him are " but men in buckram," and the 
grand Tlascalan army of one hundred and forty-nine thou- 
sandj has equally an imaginary existence. As for the 
city of twenty thousand houses,§ which he captured be- 
fore reaching the capital, that, like the armies he encoun- 
tered, was manufactured from a very small amount of 
material. The capital itself, he asserts, was larger than 
Granada, and much stronger, and contained as many fine 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 51. % Ibid., page 53. 

t Ibid., page 51. ^ Ibid., page 57. 



364 AN UNFORTUNATE REMARK OF DIAZ. 



houses, and a much larger population than that city did, 
at the time of its capture.* A statement that overdoes 
both Munchausen and the chaplain altogether. The Arar 
bian tales have nothing more untrue. The Conquistador 
himself furnishes the material for his own conviction. 
He sets down the population from which these armies 
were drawn at five hundred thousand,f a number ten 
times larger than the contracted limits he assigns to the 
whole state could support, and too small still for its- 
apocryphal force. The author of Bernal Diaz deducts 
immensely from this picture, the effects doubtless of Las 
Casas' criticisms, yet even his story is incredible. Accord- 
ing to him, the Spaniards were assailed in the first battle, 
not by four or five, but by three thousand, J in the second 
great battle, not by one hundred thousand, but by six ; 
finally the main body is stated at fifty thousand only,§ 
The hundred and forty-nine thousand Tlascalans of 
Cortez|l are but forty thousand in the pages of Diaz.^ 
In Gomora the discrepancies are still more extraordinary. 
Another curious difierence of fact may be found in com- 
paring Diaz and Cortez. It lies but in a word, but that 
word goes far to establish our suspicion that the writer 
of Bernal Diaz never saw New, Spain, or at least not until 
long after its conquest. Cortez says, the Tlascalans com- 
plained to him of being so completely shut in, that they 
were deprived of the use of salt.** To salt, Diaz adds 
cotton.^ " We cannot get beyond to get salt for our 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 61. || Cortez, page 53. 

t Ihid., page 63. \ Diaz, vol. I., page 147. 

X Diaz, vol. I., page 145. ** Cortez, page 49. 

I Ihid., page 165. ff Diaz, vol. I., page 157. 



THE FACTS IN" RELATION TO TLASCALA. 365 



victuals, nor cotton for our clothing. " If this writer had 
really been acquainted with the tribes of the table-land, 
he must have known that the fibres of the maguey were, 
among them, substitutes for that article ; and are even now 
used at the city of Mexico in the manufacture of some 
fine fabrics. In trifles like this we detect the counterfeit 
and impostor, not in important items. In these last the 
party guards against discovery by a resort to vague gene- 
ralities. 




TLASCALA OF THE GEOGRAPHERS. 



Modern Tlascala is an Indian reservation of nearly 
oval shape, sixty-nine miles long by forty-two wide. The 
climate is comparatively cold, and its soil far from excel- 
lent. From the time of Cortez it has been independently 
governed, by its own chiefs, subject to a royal commis- 



366 ADVANTAGE OF THE TLASCALAN ALLIANCE. 



sioner. Its means of subsistence have increased, and 
extensive manufactures have been estabhshed, also, since 
that time. The only enumeration ever made of its inha- 
bitants was in 1793, when it was found to contain fifty- 
one thousand one hundred and seventeen souls.* Even 
in the extravagant official estimate for the conscription 
of 1853, its population is only set down at eighty thou- 
sand one hundred and seventy-one.f Cortez says Tlas- 
cala contained half a million, according to a report made 
by his order. The three narratives exactly fix its bounds 
between certain mountains and stone walls. Besides its 
narrow compass, a perfect non-intercourse existed with 
the rest of the world ; all means of supply were cut off; 
their subsistence depended upon their own rude cultiva- 
tion. It would, therefore, seem extravagant to claim for 
the whole state of Tlascala, a population then, of over 
ten thousand, for which five hundred warriors would be a 
large allowance. 

The real importance of Tlascala, in the war of the 
conquest, was its position. The military discernment of 
Cortez discovered its strategic value, as a great natural 
fortress, affording centre and base to his future opera- 
tions against the other tribes. The Tlascalan hatred of 
Mexico assured him an adequate and reliable garrison in 
every emergency, and also any number he might desire 
of Indian auxiliaries; hence the Tlascalans were espe- 
cially favored. They shared in the perils and in the 
plunder of his enterprise ; for with them rested the ques- 

^Essai PoUtiqiie of Humboldt, vol. f Coleccion de Leges, page 184. 
I., page 144. 



RELIGIOUS TOLERATION AT TLASCALA. 367 



tion of success — whether he was to be hailed hereafter as 
the hero of a holy war, or to be branded as a buccaneer. 
The good faith with which both parties adhered to the 
conditions of their alliance, when once it was consum- 
mated, is almost without a parallel. Through good and 
through evil they mutually shared the benefits, even 
down to the time of the revolution. When, amid the 
convulsions that have lately agitated that country, the 
pariah caste* again arose, curses both loud and deep were 
muttered not only against the memory of Cortez, but the 
Tlascalans, the hereditary enemies of the Aztecs. 

The Moorish history of Spain had shown the import- 
ance of observing exact faith with those who sided with 
the invaders, and it is also apparent, from the exhorta- 
tions to Cortez — put for effect into the mouth of " Father 
Olmedo" by Diaz — to moderate his pious zeal, to be more 
tolerant to the Indians, that he imitated the Moors, so far 
as to allow his allies perfect freedom in their traditional 
worship of the "Great Spirit;" contenting himself with 
the erection of a cross, and sometimes a chapel, in their 
villages ; — a line of policy from which the Spanish gov- 
ernment appear never to have swerved : for the subsequent 
adoption, by the allies, of the Romish superstition, was 
entirely voluntary. Such an acknowledgment of the ad- 
vantages of political integrity by those " who feared not 
God, neither regarded man," cannot be too highly appre- 
ciated. Though policy alone dictated this course, that 
policy was the result of profound study. 

* Pariah, the reader will recollect, is a general term for low-caste people in 
India. 



368 CAMPAIGN OF TLASCALA. 



The remainder of the story is soon told. The food of 
the people was the maize they cultivated upon the plain, 
and the game they killed upon the mountains. Their 
clothing was wrought from the fibres of the maguey, or 
made from the skins of animals, most likely, in part, of 
both. Their government was one of sacliems and coun- 
cils, the ordinary one in existence among Indians. Glory- 
ing in their wild independence, they submitted to the 
merest shadow of authority. They had not yet attained 
that point of the social organization when the loose gov- 
ernment of the nomad gives way to despotism, the next 
stage in man's advancement. The difference between the 
Tlascalans and the Aztecs was, perhaps, that which a 
North American tribe bears to those of Central Africa, 
who dwell in mud-built cities, and slavishly obey a half- 
naked emperor. From his ox-hide within a hovel, the 
latter exercises the powers of life and death over thou- 
sands of trembling slaves. But wandering tribes can only 
act in councils, and these are, therefore, their governing 
power, and the orator has as much influence as the suc- 
cessful warrior; when power passes into a single hand, 
the orator is silent, the war-chief is the government. 
. During the months that succeeded the battle of Tobasco 
up to the first of September, 1520, no warlike encounter 
with the Indians occurred. Then, unexpectedly, Cortez 
was compelled to risk several sharply-contested affairs. 
All attempts at negotiation being fruitless, everything was 
brought to the arbitration of the sword. Without, there- 
fore, wasting useful time, an advance was at once ordered. 
Here Diaz slips into the mouth of Cortez a phrase usually 



FIRST BATTLE. 369 



attributed to Constantine : '' Let us follow our standard. 
It bears the figure of the holy cross, and in that sign we 
shall conquer" — ecce signum.'^ Without this moonshine 
we confess to the genius of Cortez. No leader, educated 
in frontier warfare, could have conducted a campaign 
better than this of Tlascala. 

Having sent forward his cavalry, who were drawn into 
an ambuscade, a general engagement was determined 
upon, rather than encourage the enemy by retreat. For 
a short time the battle was well sustained; at last the 
Tlascalans wavered, then gave way. They left seventeen 
dead upon the field. On the Spanish side four were 
wounded, one of whom died.f Crossing a mountain ridge, 
the Spaniards fell in with another body, with which a 
new but unsuccessful attempt was again made to nego- 
tiate; failing in this, Cortez gave the war-cry of Spain, 
" Forward, San Diego is Avith us !" This party was greatly 
more numerous than their own, Diaz reckons the 
enemy's numbers, absurdly enough, at six thousand, and 
at forty thousand ! One, familiar with Indian affairs, 
readily translates this fabulous nonsense into an impor- 
tant achievement by Cortez — the extrication of his cav- 
alry from an ambuscade without loss, and the complete 
dislodgment of the enemy from his cover. These occur- 
rences took place on the two first days of September, 1520. 

* hi lioc signo, &c. a campaign, yet is it represented as 

There is suspended in the Museum, the banner borne by Cortez in the 

at the city of Mexico, a damask war of the conquest ! an evidence to 

silk banner, in a gilt frame, with a the faithful of the superintending 

picture of the Virgin portrayed upon work of the blessed Virgin ! 

it. This comparatively fresh and t Diaz, vol. I., page 146. 
bright ensign apparently never saw 
24 



370 ANOTHER GREAT BATTLE. 



The next was a night battle ; so natural, so Indian- 
like are its details that we must credit them, though we 
have to reduce the hundred and forty-nine thousand of 
Cortez* to less than one thousand. This is a more liberal 
estimate than that Diaz suggests, when Gomora uses 
the same. He tells us to write down one thousand, when 
Gomora speaks of eighty thousand.-]* But, alas ! we are 
compelled to apply the pruning-knife to the numerals of 
Diaz ; even the ten thousand select men of that veracious 
individual must be counted but as so many hundreds, at 
most. Up to this time the Spaniards had lost fifty-five 
men only, by disease and battle. The night adventure 
was a triumphant success ; and, the engagement over, the 
invaders made a mountain march of six miles, during 
which they suffered severely from cold in that elevated 
region. "Our horses," says Diaz, "felt the frost quite 
severely. Two of them, indeed, got the gripes, and 
trembled like aspen-leaves, at which we were greatly 
concerned, for we thought they would have died of the 
cold."t 

The war of Tlascala was now substantially terminated ; 
what subsequently took place was the mere surprise of a 
few villages. One of these Cortez pretends to have ascer- 
tained to number twenty thousand houses ! ! § This would 
give two hundred and fifty, according to the liberal rule 
of Diaz — more, perhaps, than the real number. But 
through this mass of exaggeration we still discover the 
elements of a real Indian war. There is first, the ambus- 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 53. J Ibid., page 159. 

f Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 365. I Cortez, page 57. 



SUCCESS OF THE TLASCALAN WAR. 371 



r 



cade, the usual opening of a defensive campaign, by the 
natives. Next, the battle scene, "in a place of deep 
cavities, [ravines,]* where the cavalry was completely use- 
less." It was evidently a surprise. The success of Cortez 
consisted in pushing back the Indians to the level ground. 
In the final struggle, in accordance with Indian tactics, 
we have a night attack, with all their forces. Thus, the 
three engagements brought into exercise the whole routine 
of aboriginal strategy. On each occasion the natives 
fought desperately, as is their wont when they have their 
enemy at an advantage. That Cortez at any time escaped 
a total rout, was owing not to his superior numbers, nor 
to his experience in the European system of war, nor to 
the superiority of his weapons, but to his thorough know- 
ledge of his enemy. For an ambuscade, a surprise, or a 
night attack, he was at all times fully prepared ; calcu- 
lating upon them, he came off victorious from each en- 
counter. The total defeat of De Nouville by a small 
body of Iroquois, [Senecas,] arose from neglecting such 
precautions. In that army of twenty-six hundred, nine 
hundred were veterans from the wars of the Rhine ; yet 
three hundred of them, in full armor, were lost in an 
ambuscade.f But De Nouville, though a brave and expe- 
rienced soldier, was, like Braddock, ignorant of Indian 
tactics. 

Spaniard and Tlascalan, victor and vanquished, were 
now thoroughly exhausted by their efforts.^ The blows 



* Barrancas. of Avon, New York, entitled Yonon- 

f This is the foundation of a very dia. 
pretty poem, by Mr. W. H. C. Hosmer, J Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 169. 



372 THE TLASCALAN ALLIANCE. 



given on either side were about equal, and the induce- 
ments to a cessation of hostilities mutual. Under these 
circumstances, there was not much difficulty in settling 
the terms of a peace, hereafter to be turned into an offen- 
sive and defensive alliance against Mexico. This was not 
effected, however, without an exhibition on the part of 
Cortez of about as much double-dealing as was ever dis- 
played by an Indian diplomatist. As both the ambassa- 
dors of the Mexicans and the Tlascalans were at the same 
time in his camp, he pretended to hesitate with which he 
should form an alliance. The result of this duplicity 
was as he anticipated. Day by day, while he affected to 
vacillate, each party continued to raise their bids for his 
friendship ; at last there arrived from Mexico presents to 
the value of three thousand dollars, in gold, and cotton 
stuffs, interwoven with feather-work. Having, then, all 
he could expect from that quarter, his decision was at 
once taken ; he set out for the chief village of the Tlas- 
calans, under the escort of a solemn embassy from that 
tribe ) not forgetting, however, to take with him, and to 
keep near his person, the Mexican envoys. A better cer- 
tificate of his own importance he could not have had. 
Thus circumstanced, he marched to the council-village, 
or capital of the Tlascalan Confederation, and was there 
received with every demonstration of joy and mutual 
friendship; and an alliance was at last consummated, 
which remained undisturbed during the three hundred 
years of Spanish domination. 

The mihtary and diplomatic features of this war termi- 
nated, we approach with doubtful reverence the piety 



CORTEZ AS A REFORMER. 373 



thrown in^ as a make-weight. It is, as before suggested, 
piety without faith — the offspring of a religion without 
godliness. After treating us to the usual fables of human 
sacrifice, Diaz makes Cortez so zealous for the sacraments 
as to write to Escalante, at Vera Cruz, to send two bottles 
of wine and some holy wafers, as he had none left.* The 
same author adds, " During these days we erected a ma- 
jestic cross in our quarters, and Cortez had one of the 
temples in our neighborhood cleansed and fresh plas- 
tered."* In another place, referring to the same transac- 
tion, he adds, " and the image of the blessed Virgin [he 
caused] to be placed [portrayed] on it."-|* On being pre- 
sented with five young girls, the Conquistador is repre- 
sented as delivering one of those peculiar sermons which 
characterize the narrative of Diaz. " He told them many 
other things concerning our holy faith which Dona Marina 
and Aguilar explained right toell to them ! Cortez, at the 
same time, showed them the image of the holy Virgin, 
holding her inestimable Son in her arms. . . . She was 
our mediator with her Heavenly Son, our God."^ Can it 
be wondered, after such an exhibition of oriental venera- 
tion for the cross, and the Madonna and Infant,§ that the 

* Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 173. of morals was preceded by a total 

f Ibid., page 182. depravity in doctrine ; and the incor- 

X Ibid., page 181. poration into the Christian system of 

§ The general notion among us is, the peculiar Phoenician form of idol- 

that the Oriental divisions of the atry that pervaded all Western Asia 

Catholic church (using the Catholic — the adoration of the Madonna and 

in a party sense) are less corrupt in the cross. 

doctrine than the Eomish. Nothing All the change these emblems re- 
could be more opposite the truth. Not ceived vs^as in adding the tradition of 
only are all these churches utterly de- Mary and her Son. As in olden time, 
praved in morals, but this depravity Malcarth, the Phoenican Hercules, 



374 



CORTEZ AS A REFORMER. 



simple natives should connect them with that race which 
in ages past had portrayed the same scenes on the ruined 



took on the story of Samson, so the 
Madonna and Child of the Syro-Phoe- 
nician coins was no longer Ashteroth, 
and the child of sacrifice, but Mary 
and Christ, the Infant. 

The Romanists, in constant contact 
with Protestants for centuries, do 
not exhibit the paganism of their sys- 
tem so prominently as the Orientals. 

" I think it may be useful for me 
to state here some of the grosser errors 
of the Armenian church system, as 
they are contained in the church 
books still in daily and constant use. 

" In the first place, these books 
teach that the ' holy pictures,' as 
they are called, after the ceremony of 
anointing by the priest, are endued 
with power ' quickly to help and save 
all those that trust in the Lord ;' to 
' defend travellers ;' to ' aid those who 
are in the midst of tempests at sea ;' 
to ' heal the sick ;' to be * an atone- 
ment for sinners;' to 'cast out devils;' 
to ' intercede for men ;' to ' impart 
health to body and soul,' &c., &c. And 
after the consecration takes place, the 
ecclesiastics are directed to ' burn in- 
cense before the pictures ;' to kiss 
them ; and to see that ' suitable hymns 
and prayers' are used before them. 

" In the second place, the anointed 
wooden and metallic crosses have like 
powers. After the form of prayer, 
accompanying the anointing of a 
cross, is given, comes the following 
direction to the priests : ' Afterwards 
let them offer adoration, and, all of 
them in order, kiss, and unitedly 
worship, saying three times, "We 
worship thy cross, Christ, and we 



magnify thy burial, and we glorify 
thy resurrection.'" After this, in 
the same service, we find a prayer 
from which I make the following re- 
markable extracts : ' Bestow the grace 
of thy Holy Spirit upon this signal 
(the cross) which we have erected in 
thy name. Make this the keeper of 
our souls and bodies. Hear, pardon, 
and save all who believe in thy cru- 
cified Son, and worship this cross.' 
. . . ' And when thou sendest death 
upon men, and they come and entreat 
thee before this signal (the cross), do 
thou hear, and pardon, and save 
them.' . . . 'Remember also the 
maker of this (cross), and have mercy 
upon him.' In parts of this prayer, 
which I have omitted, particular 
mention is made of almost every evil 
that can befall man, and for every 
one the petition is offered, that God 
would remove the evil from all who 
worship before the cross. 

" In addition to this, we find every- 
where, in the church books, prayers 
to the Virgin Mary, and other saints, 
and their intercession implored. These 
books are full of expressions like the 
following: 'We beseech thee, holy 
mother of God, intercede with Christ 
to save his people whom he hath pur- 
chased with his blood.' 'We have 
thee, unwedded Virgin, as our in- 
tercessor ; . . . thee, who art the gate 
of heaven, the way to paradise, the 
remover of curses,' &c., ' do not cease 
to intercede for us.' 

" ' Rejoice, mother of God, who 
art the boast of virginity, the mo- 
ther of human stability,' &r, 



CORTEZ AS A REFORMER. 



375 



temples of Yucatan and the hot country ? Our historian 
further adds : " Upon this, it was explained to the caciques 
[chiefs] why we always erected two crosses whenever we 
formed a camp, and passed the night, assuring them, 
among other things, that their gods feared them!"* 
Under such teaching the children of the forest became 
baptized heathen ! Yet it is about a fair average of the 
teaching of Romish missionaries,*]- to the adorers of the 
Great Spirit. 



' holy Virgin, the dissolver of curses, 
and the atoner of sins.' And while 
such expressions, addressed to the 
Virgin Mary and many other saints, 
and also to the angels, everywhere 
abound, I have searched in vain for a 
single mention of the mediation of 
Christ, the only mediator between 
God and man ! 

" Furthermore, we find that in the 
Armenian system, there is no recog- 
nition of the individual and personal 
relation of the sinner to God. His 
relations are with the priests and the 
sacraments, and through them he 
hopes for the pardon of sin, and an 
entrance into paradise. The books 
of the church teach that original sin 
is entirely cleansed away by baptism, 
and that actual sins are atoned for by 
the ' sacrifice of the mass ;' and the 
sinner fully released by the pardon- 
ing power of the priest ! 

" All these things I have stated at 
large in my papers, with full extracts 
from their own books ; and all the 
reply I have yet heard is that of many 
individuals, who say, ' Who believes 
in these things now V And it is partly 
true, and a most encouraging truth it 
is, that great numbers of the Arme- 



nians, who still remain connected 
with the old church, have, through 
the preaching of the missionaries and 
our native brethren, and the perusal 
of our books, become entirely satis- 
fied of the errors of their church. 
Still the church, as such, has not 
essentially changed, and, as I have 
already intimated, all these things 
are still read in their daily and 
weekly services. It is evident that 
things cannot long remain as they 
are at present. Either the church 
books and services must be reformed, 
or there will be a greater exodus than 
ever before, going forth from the cor- 
rupted mass. May the Lord hasten, 
it in his time \" — Letters from Mk. 
DwiGHT, Constantinople. 

Thus we see the church that Christ 
established in the world, falling into 
the apostasy with the church planted 
by Moses, and corrupting itself in the 
adoration of the "Queen of Hea- 
ven," and of her emblem. 

* Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 182. 

t Thomas Gage, who spent eighteen 
years as Dominican friar, in New 
Spain, thus speaks of the character of 
the missionary monks of his day, two 
hundred years ago. ..." That of 



376 



CHOLULA. 




MARCH TO CHOLULA. 



The scene now shifts to an adjoining tribe, one bearing 
the famihar name of Cholula, in common with a mud- 



the thirty or forty, which on such oc- 
casions are [annually] transported to 
India, three parts of them are friars 
of bad lives." London, 1677. Page 
17. 

Then follows an amusing account 
of the manner he was led to embrace 
the life of a friar-missionary. 

" This Malendoz greatly rejoiced 
when he had found me ; and being 
well stocked with Indian patacones 
[money] the first night of his coming, 
invited me to his chamber to a stately 
supper. The good Xeres sack, which 



was not spared, set my friend in such 
a heart of zeal of converting Japo- 
vians, that all his talk was of those 
parts never yet seen, and at least sis 
thousand leagues distant. Bacchus 
metamorphosed him from a divine 
into an orator, and made him a Cicero 
in parts of rhetoi-ical eloquence. No- 
thing was omitted that might exhort 
me to join with him in the function 
[enterprise] which he thought was 
apostolical — nemo propheta in patria 
[no one is a prophet in his own coun- 
try], was a great argument with him ; 



CHOLULA. 



377 



built village, and an immense earthen mound, which dis- 
tinguished it, then, as now, among all the villages of the 



sometimes he propounded martyrdom 
for the gospel's sake, and the glory 
after it to have his life and death 
printed, and of poor Friar Antony, a 
cloister son of Segovia, to he styled St. 
Antony by the Pope, and made col- 
lateral with the Apostles in heaven ; 
thus did Bacchus make him ambi- 
tious of honor upon the earth and 
preferment in heaven. But when he 
thought his rhetoric had not pre- 
vailed, then would he act at Midas 
and Croesus, fancying the Indies 
paved with tiles of gold and silver; 
the stones to be pearls, rubies, and 
diamonds ; the trees to be hung with 
clusters of nutmegs bigger than the 
clusters of grapes of Canaan ; the fields 
to be planted with sugar-cane, which 
should so sweeten the chocolate that 
it should exceed the milk and honey 
of the Land of Promise ; the silks of 
China he conceited so common, that 
the sails of the ships were nothing 
else: finally he dreamed of Midas's 
happiness, that whatsoever he touched 
should be turned to gold. Thus did 
Xeres nectar make my friend and 
mortified [self-denying] friar, a co- 
vetous worldling. And yet, from a 
rich covetous merchant, did it shape 
him to a courtier in pleasure ; fancy- 
ing the Philippines to be Eden, where 
was all joy without tears, mirth with- 
out sadness, laughing without sorrow, 
comfort without grief, plenty without 
want^ — no, not of Eves for Adams, ex- 
cepted only that in it should be no 
forbidden fruit, but all lawful for the 
taste-sweetening of the palate ; and 
as Adam would have been as God, so 
conceited Melendoz himself a god in 



that Eden, whom travelling Indian 
waits and trumpets should accom- 
pany; and to whom, entering into any 
town, nosegays should be presented. 
Flowers and boughs should be strew- 
ed in the way ; arches should be 
erected to ride under. Bells for joy 
should be rung ; and Indian knees 
for duty and homage, as to a god, 
should be bowed to the very ground. 
From this inducing argument, and 
representation of a paradise, he fell 
into a strong rhetorical point of curio- 
sity, finding out a tree of knowledge 
. . . there should the pepper be 
known in its season, the nutmeg and 
clove, the cinnamon as a rine or bark 
on a tree, the fashioning of the sugar 
from a green growing cane into a 
loaf; the strange shaping of the 
cochineal from a worm to so rich a 
scarlet die ; the changing of tints 
which is but grass with stalk and 
leaves into an indigo black die, should 
be taught and learned. . . . Finally, 
though Xeres's liquor had put his be- 
witching eloquence into my Antony's 
brain, yet he doubted not to prefer be- 
fore it his wine of Philippines, grow- 
ing on tall and high trees of cocoa, 
wherein he longed to drink a Spanish 
Brindis [toast] in my company, to 
all his friends remaining behind in 
Spain. Who would not be persuaded 
by these his arguments to follow him 
and his Calvo, or bald-pated supe- 
rior ? Thus supper being ended, my 
Melendoz desired to know how my 
heart [!] stood affected to his journey; 
and breaking out into a voto a Dios, 
with his converting zeal he swore he 
should have no quiet night's rest 



378 "WAS QUETZALCOATL THE APOSTLE THOMAS? 



table-land. For once we shall follow the standard histo- 
rians, and afterwards add our own observations. That 
famous cut^stone pyramid of Cholula, a print of which 
used to adorn every school geography of our country, had 
never other than an imaginary existence. The reality is 
an earthen mound, differing from the common sort only 
in its enormous size. We are indebted to fiction for all 
else that it possesses. 

The Spanish inventors of Indian traditions made Cho- 
lula the Mecca of the Anahuac, where of old an annual 
fair was held, the resort of merchants and pilgrims from 
all parts of the table-land ; there, say they, sacrifices were 
offered and vows performed, while exchange and barter 
engrossed a busy multitude in its bazaars, and at the foot 
of the great pyramid. Cholula, by these apocryphal tra- 
ditions, was in the time of Indian paganism ! sacred to 
Quetzalcoatl, ^' the god of the air,"* who, during his abode 
on earth, had taught mankind the use of metals, the prac- 
tice of agriculture, and the arts of government. Other 



until he were fully satisfied of my feits ; for in this country, even the 

resolution to accompany him," — most sacred records are open to such 

Thomas Gage, page 25. suspicion. Popular tradition and the 

The above is a more perfect picture most approved authors will have it, 

of the character of a jolly friar, than I that some stray white found his 

have anywhere else seen — true to the way among the Mexicans, taught 

life. them empirically the calculations and 

* At Cholula, I was so fortunate as divisions of time, with a very few 

to procure one of the images of Quet- of those arts of civilized life unknown 

zalcoatl, cut in stone, with curled hair to our Indians, for which they vene- 

and Caucasian features. This I after- rated him as a god. But the proba- 

wards compared with the great image bilities are that the whole story is a 

found at Mexico, not without strong myth ; and for once the Inquisition 

suspicions that both were counter- was right in suppressing speculation. 



THE CITY OF CHOLULA. 379 



Spanish authors, presuming these traditions true, saw in 
them the mission of the Apostle Thomas to the Anahuac, 
and hence styled him the reformer of that people ; and 
thus accounted for the cross, the Madonna, and the in- 
cense-burning pictured on the temple-ruins of the hot 
country. Thus have hypotheses been piled upon each 
other, to account for the striking similarity that seems to 
have existed between antique paganism and Eomish 
idolatry. 

The account which Cortez gives of Cholula is even 
more extravagant than his description of Tlascala. Ac- 
cording to him, the village of Cholula was a rich and 
opulent city of forty thousand houses.* He says he 
counted "from a mosque,-]' or temple, four hundred 
mosques,-]- and four hundred towers of other mosques." 
He says, too, " the exterior of this city is more beautiful 
than any in Spain." Diaz, more moderate in the use of 
numerals, reduces the eight hundred to one hundred very 
high towers, the whole of which were cues, or temples, 
on which the human sacrifices were offered, and their idols 
stood. The principal cu, here, was even higher than that 
of Mexico, though the latter, he says, was magnificent, and 
very high. " I well remember when we first entered this 
town, and looking up to the elevated white temples, how 
the whole place put us completely in mind of Yalladolid." J 
Other historians go yet further, and represent Cholula 
not only as the Mecca and commercial centre, but also 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 71. idea that he was conducting a holy 

f This word mosques Cortez con- war. 

stantly makes use of, apparently to J Dias, vol. I., page 206. 
keep before the people of Spain the 



180 THE SIMPLE TRUTH ABOUT CHOLULA. 



the seat of learning for the whole Anahuac. Here, say 
they, the Indian philosophers met upon a common foot- 
ing with Indian merchants. 

Its government,* like that of Tlascala, was republican ; 
so that upon these plains, according to Spanish authors, 
more than three hundred years ago there flourished two 
powerful republics, Tlascala and Cholula, the first the 
Lacedgemon, the second the Athens of the Indian world. 
When united, they had successfully resisted the arms of 
Montezuma; but Aztec intrigue was too powerful for the 
American Athens, and the polished city of Cholula was 
subdued by those arts with which Philip of Macedon won 
the sovereignty of Greece — a combination of intrigue and" 
arms. Tlascala was left alone to resist the whole force 
of the Aztec empire, now aided by the faithless Cholu- 
lans. Yet Tlascala, undismayed by the new combina- 
tion, did not readily listen even to the proposals of Cor- 
tez ; and only after the terrible experience she received 
of his strength, did she admit the value of his alliance. 
Let us contemplate the simple truth. 

The ordinary representations of the city and republic 
of Cholula are all in a style of magnificence commensu- 
rate with the foregoing outline. Such statements only 
had the author seen, when he undertook its survey. He 
had not then heard or read of the suggestion of Torqua- 
mada,f though copied into one of the notes J of Eobert- 
son. " The large mount of earth at Cholula, which the 
Spaniards dignified with the name of temple, still remains, 

* Mexico and its Religion. J Note to Kobertson, No. 154. 

t ToRQUAMADA, Liber III., c. 19. 



THE SIMPLE TRUTH ABOUT CHOLULA. 



381 



4'' ■i;-4e, 




THE GREAT MOtrND, OR PYRAMID OF CHOLULA — SOUTH TIETV."' 

without any steps by which to ascend, or any facing of 
stone. It appears now like a mound, covered with grass 
and shrubs, and possibly it was never anything more." 
The striking resemblance of this to the mounds scattered 
through the country of our northern tribes, satisfied us 
of their common origin, and that this, like the others, 
was but an Indian burying-place, formed by the deposi- 
tion of earth upon the top of a sharp conical hill, as often 
as fresh bodies were interred, and this is probably the 
fact. Its greater size is doubtless attributable to its situa- 
tion in the midst of a most fertile plain, [yegd] where 
from generation to generation a dense population must 
have dwelt, who used this as the common receptacle of 



* The difference between this graver. Like too many ideas con- 
sketch and the copy in Mexico and tained in that volume, it went to 
its Religion, is owing to a misconcep- press without opportunity for cor- 
tion of it on the part of the wood-en- rection. 



382 THE CHOLULA MASSACRE. 



their dead. The appearance of that structure, which 
Humboldt and other Europeans have considered a monu- 
ment of antique art, is readily explained by opposing facts 
familiar only to Americans, to the scientific speculations 
of foreigners ! But to this one there is now no question : 
an excavation having been made into the side of the 
mound, it revealed that truth which we only surmised.* 
The only ruins at Cholula are those of several Spanish 
convents, abandoned by the Teligious-\ for others in the 
more congenial, because more polluted atmosjohere of 
Paebla,X six miles distant. The village is a collection of 
adohe^ huts, such as it doubtless was in the time of Cortez, 
and all the appearance of art about " the pyramid" is the 
modern church upon its crest. 

An important event transpired at Cholula, and gave it 
a sad celebrity. It was a massacre that called forth the 
furious denunciation of Las Casas. Diaz, after railing at 
"the protector of the Indians,"] | gives us his own version 
of the bloody work, which is hardly less revolting than 
that he denounces. Two thousand Indians,T[ ^^J^ ^^^^ 
narrator, were collected by the orders of Cortez in the 



* The living witnesses of the result to the evidence collected by Madame 

of this excavation are still at Cholula, Calderon de la Barca, of the Sodom- 

and the fact is mentioned in several like character of this city of monks 

American works ; my inference from and naughty women. Puehla of the 

the fact is the only novelty in the Angels, is its full name. But they 

matter. are such angels as the bottomless pit 

f This is a term, in Romish coun- may be supposed to produce, 

tries, applied to all persons belonging § Adobe is a large brick, formed 

to monastic orders, viz : persons un- from common mud dried in the sun. 

der vows. || The title of Las Casas. 

% We have already called attention Tj Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 207. 



THE CHOLULA MASSACRE. 38^ 



great square ; the pretence was, their employment as 
auxiharies in the contemplated Mexican campaign. At 
a given signal the Spaniards fell upon them, and slaugh- 
tered the whole, while the Tlascalans sacked the village. 
The numbers are doubtless exaggerated, but the narrowest 
reality must have still been terrible. The apology for 
the act was the anticipation of an Indian outbreak, and 
the alleged proof of it — that the Indian women and chil- 
dren had disappeared — a certain premonition of hostili- 
ties. But this apology may have been only an after- 
thought. A probable solution is, that Cortez felt but 
doubtful of their fidelity, and feared to leave his rear to 
a people who might ruin his enterprise, and he little 
scrupled to adopt whatever policy might dictate to rid 
himself of a difficulty. Diaz places his vindication on 
the judgment of certain Franciscan* fathers, charged with 
the investigation of the afiair. But Franciscans were not 
proper judges where Las Casas, a hated Dominican, was 
the accuser, and their patron, Cortez, the accused. After 
this sacrifice had been consummated, Diaz gives the stereo- 
typed exhibition of his chief's piety, and his great zeal 
for the abolition of those human sacrifices that never 
existed, and concludes with the intolerable nonsense of 
charging the Cholulans with fattening men and women 
for food, in pens, as animals are fatted. Strange enough, 
this is repeated even by our own historians. Indeed, 
though all the books on the conquest are but mere 
paraphrases, or changes rung upon the despatches, 
their authors give these slanders a greater prominence 

* Diaz, Yol. I., page 157. 



384 AN ASCENT OF THE VOLCANO. 



than Cortez dared to, before the battery of Las Casas was 
spiked, and the emperor had yielded to sinister motives 
against his own convictions. But the imperial will once 
signified, the libel became history, and truth was sup- 
pressed. Fernando de Alva satisfactorily vindicates the 
Tezcucans from the charge of human sacrifice, but from 
motives of policy he leaves it in full force against the 
Mexicans. 

At this time Ordaz made the ascent of Popocatapetl. 
That now extinct volcano was then in activity. The 
narrative of this memorable exploit is slightly mingled 
with the fabulous, yet there are so many marks of truth 
about the relation as to enforce belief in most of its de- 
tails. It is an instance in which little abatement from 
the received account is necessary. Ordas set out with 
two companions on his perilous exj^edition, and was ac- 
companied by a party of Indians, about half-way up. 
Deserted by them, he still pressed on, while the mountain 
trembled to its very foundation ; at length he was met by 
a shower of ashes and half-burned stones, accompanied 
with huge columns of fire. After waiting an hour for 
the fiery tempest to abate, he resumed his journey, undis- 
mayed by this terrific, and to him novel scene, and ulti- 
mately reached the edge of the crater, over ten thousand 
feet above the plain, and seventeen from the sea level. 
A scene was then presented that richly rewarded his 
fatigue and danger — one that European eyes had never 
before beheld. A lake of fire, three miles in diameter, 
lay before him, boiling and simmering, dim with sulphur- 
ous vapors, and darkly flecked with ashes, scoria, and 



AN ASCENT OF THE VOLCANO. 385 



pumice; without, the panorama presented to his vision 
was not less strange and unusual. The plain of the Ana- 
huac lay spread at his feet, with all the inferior moun- 
tains of the table-land, while a faint halo in the distance 
appeared like the reflection of the two oceans. The val- 
ley of Mexico, its lagunas, and its islands teeming with 
hamlets, and a busy throng of life, was one section of the 
prospect before him, and the most important, as that to 
which all the hopes and designs of the Spaniards tended. 
The purity of the medium through which he gazed pre- 
sented distant objects unwontedly near, but strangely 
diminished. It was a microcosm in which men, women, 
and villages appeared distinctly, but dwarfed to the ap- 
pearance of puppets. Ordaz was the first European who 
had looked upon the valley of Mexico, and this gratifica- 
tion he enjoyed in return for his courage and perseverance. 
Cortez mentions, in his despatches, sending and obtaining 
sulphur for the manufacture of powder* from the interior 

* In Cortez' letters to the emperor, made the attempt, I caused several 
we read as follows : — " As for sul- Spaniards to undertake it, and exa- 
phur, I have already made mention mine the character of the summit, 
to yourMajesty of a mountain in this At the time they went up, so much 
province from which smoke issues; smoke proceeded from it, accompa- 
out of it sulphur has been taken by a nied by noises, that they were either 
Spaniard, who descended seventy or unable or afraid to reach its mouth, 
eighty fathoms by means of a rope Afterwards I sent up some other Spa- 
attached to his body below his arms ; niards, who made two attempts, and 
from which source we have been en- finally reached the aperture of the 
abled to obtain sufficient supplies, mountain whence the smoke issued, 
although it is attended with danger, which was two bow-shots wide, and 
It is hoped that it will not be neces- about three-fourths of a league in cir- 
sary for us to resort [again] to this cumference, where they discovered 
means of procuring it." . ..." As some sulphur which the smoke de- 
the Indians told us that it was danger- posited," 
ous to ascend, and fatal to those who 
25 



386 CORTEZ ENTERS THE VALLEY OF MEXICO. 



of the crater by men let down by ropes. Was that a 
fact ? Would they not have been suffocated ? 

The note of preparation for the invasion of Mexico 
was now heard on every side. " Peace had been con- 
cluded between them [the Cholulans] and their neigh- 
bors, the Tlascalans, a cross erected, and much of our holy 
faith explained to the inhabitants," says Diaz.* Attempts 
were made also to conceal from Montezuma the real ob- 
ject of the march upon his capital. Whether the deceit 
succeeded with so wily a diplomatist is extremely doubt- 
ful. Most likely Cortez shared the common fate; pre- 
suming he had overreached his adversary, he deceived 
himself. Montezuma, failing to induce the invader to 
forego his march, after the slaughter of the Cholulans, 
changed his tactics, and urged him to visit Mexico, delibe- 
rately devoting it to destruction, that he might for ever 
be rid of a race whose repeated cruelties to the natives 
of the islands were about to be re-enacted in his own pro- 
vinces. The Sempoallans declining to accompany Cortez 
further, he dismissed them with presents to their homes. 
The Tlascalans furnished, according to Cortez,t four thou- 
sand auxiliaries, according to Diaz, one thousand,! ^^ com- 
plete the expedition. All things being then in order, the 
little army commenced its march. 

Four leagues brought the Spaniards to the village of 
the Guajotzincos, allies of the Tlascalans. It was there 
learned that the Mexicans had prepared ambuscades in 
the different mountain-roads leading into their valley, by 

* Diaz, vol, I., page 207. % Diaz, vol. I., page 211. 

t Cortez, page 78. 



CORTEZ ENTERS THE VALLEY OF MEXICO. 387 




MARCH TO THE MEXICAN VALLEY. 



which the army might easily be surprised. But from such 
casualties it was sufficiently guarded by their leader's vigi- 
lance, and that of their allies, who, constantly watching 
from their eminences, noted every movement that occurred 
on the opposite side of the barrier. Carefully avoiding 
the snares laid for him, Cortez again moved forward, sur- 
mounting in one day, and in the midst of a driving storm, 
the pass antigua between the two volcanoes, and arrived 
at Chalco city, where he was immediately surrounded by 
the disaffected people of the valley, those of Chalco, 
Amaqueraca, &c. These then received their first les- 
sons in religion'^ from the invaders, in their demand for 



* Diaz, vol. I., page 214. 



388 CHOLULA. 



a new supply of women. The aborigines complained bit- 
terly of the manner in which Montezuma's tax-gatherers 
seized the best-looking of their females. Did they gain 
anything by accepting the new domination ? 



CHOLULA. 



" It was a delightful afternoon when I mounted my horse for a ride to 
Cholula. The wind of the day before had driven away every vapor from 
this exceedingly transparent atmosphere, excepting only the cloud that was 
resting upon Popocatapetl, a little below its snow-covered summit. It was 
such weather as we have at " harvest home," and it was truly a " harvest 
home" throughout the whole Vega. Men were working in gangs in the dif- 
ferent fields, gathering stalks, or husking corn, or cutting grain, or ploughing 
with a dozen ploughs in company, or harrowing, or putting in seed. It was 
harvest-time and seed-time together. The full green blade and the ripened 
grain stood in adjoining fields, in this region of perpetual sunshine. As I 
rode along between carefully cultivated estates, I did not fail to catch the 
enthusiasm, which groups of cheerful field-laborers always inspire, in one 
whose happiest recollections run back to the labors of the farm. Such are 
the varieties this country afibrds : three days ago I was enjoying the most 
delicate tropical fruits, which I plucked fresh from the trees ; yesterday I 
was traversing a salt desert covered with clouds of drifting sand ; and I was 
now among grain-farms of a cold climate. 

" Right before me, as I rode along, was a mass of trees, of ever-green 
foliage, presenting indistinctly the outline of a pyramid, which ran up to the 
height of about two hundred feet, and was crowned by an old stone church, 
and surmounted by a tall steeple. It was the most attractive object in the 
plain ; it had such a look of uncultivated nature, in the midst of grain-fields. 
It would have lost half its attractiveness had it been the stiff and clumsy thing 
which the pictures represent it to be. I had admired it in pictures from my 
childhood, for what it was not ; but I now admired it for what it really was — 
the finest Indian mound on this continent ; where the Indians buried the 
bravest of their braves, with bows and arrows, and a drinking cup, that they 
might not be unprovided for when they should arrive at the hunting-grounds 
of the Great Spirit. A little digging, a few years ago, has furnished the 
evidence on which I base this assertion. This digging has destroyed the 



CHOLULA. 389 

monkish fiction to reinstate the truly Indian idea of the dead, and of the 
necessity of mounds for their burial, 

" By going round to the north side, I obtained a fine view of the modern 
improvements constructed upon this Indian pile. I rode up a paved carriage- 
way into the church-yard, that now occupies the top, and giving my horse to 
a squalid Indian imp, who came out of the vestry, I went in and took a sur- 
vey of the tawdry images, through which God is now worshipped by the 
baptized descendants of the builders of this pyramid. My curiosity was 
60on gratified, and I returned to my place in the saddle. 

" I followed the wall around the church-yard, stopping from point to point, 
to look upon the vast map spread around on every side. Orizaba, which I 
first saw when one hundred and fifty miles out at sea as a mammoth sugar- 
loaf, resting upon a cloud, had at Jalapa, and at the ' Eye-of-Waters,' dif- 
ferent forms, while here it appeared to be joined with the Perote, forming the 
limit of the horizon toward the east. On the west were Popocatapetl, Iztac- 
cihuatl, and Malinche ; while smaller mountains and hills seemed to com- 
plete the line of circumvallation, which gave to the elevated plain of Puebla 
the aspect of the bed of an exhausted lake, and to the isolated hills, rising 
here and there upon its surface, the appearance of having been islands when 
the waters covered the face of the land. 

" The cloud was still resting upon Popocatapetl ; but its crest far above it, 
was in that region, where, in the tropics, ice and snow lie undisturbed for- 
ever. The marks which it bore of having once been the smoke-pipe of one 
of Nature's furnaces, furnished us with the translation of its name — * The 
mountain with a smolcing mouth.' But that lake of fire has long ceased to 
burn ; and when the mountain last emitted smoke was unknown to the 
oldest inhabitant. And that other mountain, Iztaccihuatl, or the 'White 
Woman,' lying so quietly and snug, in her covering of perpetual snow, at 
the side of the volcano, called up in the minds of the Indians the strange 
conceit of man and wife. There were forests on the mountain sides, and 
trees along the rivers covered with green ; but all else looked dry and 
parched. Seldom, indeed, has the eye of man ever rested on a finer farm- 
ing country than the great plain of Puebla, and seldom are lands seen better 
cultivated. 




•^Talmanalco 



MAP OP THE VALLEY OF MEXICO. 



CHAPTER XL 

COETEZ ENTERS MEXICO, SEIZES MONTEZUMA, AND OCCUPIES 
THAT CITY TILL DRIVEN OUT BY AN INSURRECTION. 

Advantage of having the person of Montezuma, 391 — A pi-obable plot and 
counterplot, 392 — The Spaniards and Indians both doubtless designing 
treachery, 394 — Fabulous narratives of the entr4 and appearance of Mexico, 
395 — The effect of historic fables on the modern city, 397 — Mexico as an 
Indian capital, 397 — Interviews with Montezuma before his arrest, 398 — 
The capture of Montezuma, 400 — Advantage gained by this treacherous 
act, 401 — Cortez prepares to go against Narvaez, 403 — The battle vrith Nar- 
vaez, 404 — Commencement of hostilities in the capital, 405 — The contest 
around the Spanish quarters, 406 — Capture of the great pyramid, 408 — 
Other events before the night retreat, 408 — Unsatisfactory cause assigned 
for retreat, 409 — Cortez' night retreat from Mexico, 410 — Recapitulation 
of the night retreat, 413 — The fugitives at the " Hill oi Bemedios," 414 — Re- 
treat continued, 415 — The second night of the retreat, 415 — The retreat to 
Otumba, 417— The great battle of Otumba, 418— The battle concluded, 419 
— Cortez reaches Tlascala, 420 — The author visits Tacuba, 420. 

The next important event was the entrance of the 
Spaniards into the island-home of the Aztecs, and the 
memorable act of treachery which followed it. Cortez, 
in his first despatch, declares his intentions were to march 
on Mexico, and seize the person of Montezuma* in a cer- 
tain contingency, designing to use for his own advantage 
the profound reverence which Indians pay their rulers. 
If the benefits of this proceeding were after a few months 
lost, the disturbance of the charm must be attributed to 

* Cortez, page 37. 

(391) 



392 A PROBABLE PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT. 



the invasion of Narvaez, and the excessive cruelty and 
rapacity of the Spaniards, in the absence of their leader. 
While the spell remained unbroken, Cortez was in effect 
the absolute ruler of the coalesced tribes 5 and the indus- 
try with which they gathered and brought him gold, 
shows that he had not miscalculated the power which the 
possession of the person of Montezuma conferred. 

This well-formed design Cortez had followed steadily, 
from the time of his landing. The war of Tlascala was 
an unexpected episode, as well as that of the slaughter 
of the Cholulans. But these inspired such terror among 
the Aztecs as led them to abandon all hope of resisting 
the invader by open hostilities. Presents had not con- 
ciliated, they had rather whetted the appetite for more ; 
and now, successfully avoiding their ambuscades, they 
beheld their terrible enemy in full force within their 
mountain barrier. But one alternative remained — to 
devote their capital to destruction, and with it to rid 
themselves for ever of this hated race. The narrow 
causeways across their marshes were therefore left un- 
guarded, and the light bridges that spanned the water- 
channels permitted to remain. The little canals, excavated 
on either side, were covered with canoes, full of people, 
prepared to receive their enemies, in the gaudy attire of 
savage merry-making. The entre into the imperial capi- 
tal was arranged with the pomp of Indian stateliness. 
The display of feather-work was of the richest kind. On 
every side the plumage of native birds, intermixed with 
stuffs, stained in fancy colors, and wrought in the borders 
with ]porcu;pines quills, gave a fairy elegance to things 




CORTEZ' ENTRY INTO THE CITY OF MEXICO. 



394 MUTUAL INSINCERITY. 



the most unreal. The display of welcome was magnifi- 
cent, and the more ostentatious, as neither party was 
sincere. 

The Indians had learned to abhor the pale-faces, per- 
haps from some lingering traditions of Phoenician domi- 
nation, or that the trade-winds were constantly wafting 
to their shores, from the West Indies, strange tales of 
blood, which reached even this interior locality. Fugi- 
tives from Spanish cruelty for more than a quarter of a 
century, also, had kept the tribes of the main land in 
fearful expectation of a visit from that dreaded race, who 
came and went in " canoes" capable of carrying off the 
population of an entire village in a single vessel. While 
the Spaniards threaded the intricacies of the Indian 
causeways, across the marsh, the subtile natives secretly 
rejoiced that so large a party of the barbarous enslavers 
of their race were thus within their power. In their 
imagination they had but to remove their light bridges, 
and these invaders within their island-fastness were safe ; 
an escape seemed hopeless, closed, as it was, to all the 
outer world, with an impenetrable belt of mud. Bark- 
canoes* the pale-faces could not navigate, and no mate- 
rial for the formation of others within that marshy barrier 
existed. But the Spaniards advanced unhesitatingly, 

* It is quite difficult for an inexpe- bottom. The author has some paiu- 
rienced person even to get into a bark- ful recollections of this kind of travel- 
canoe. The first attempt generally ling, vrhen the sea -was rough. To go 
ends in the boat slipping away, and dancing over the waves, in an egg- 
the novice landing in deep water, shell-like vessel, is not an agreeable 
When in the boat, none but the most situation at any time. But such is 
experienced can do more than main- canoe-travelling, 
tain his equilibrium, seated on the 



FABULOUS DESCRIPTIONS OF MEXICO. 395 



relying not upon the faith of their Indian hosts, but on 
their own superior valor, and the ability of their leader 
for success. They were not, as Bernal Diaz foolishly 
represents, to carry out a fiction, an army led by a de- 
bating society. Like all other successful expeditions, 
despotic power in the hands of a chief was the govern- 
ment, and his capacity to exercise it the secret of its 
triumph. 

In the beginning of the dry season, November 8, 1519, 
Cortez made his formal entry into the city, and lodged in 
one spacious enclosure the whole of his little army. Here 
both Cortez and Diaz turn aside to paint wild figments of 
the magnificence of the capital of Montezuma. Oriental 
story, in its richest flights, has hardly ever reached the 
extravagance of their tales. Were either narrating a 
public reception of the Caliph of Cordova, in the zenith 
of his glory, or the triumphal entry of those of Bagdad, 
they could not have pictured scenes comparable to these 
described, as actually transpiring in their presence in this 
Indian metropolis.* The enormity of the fiction is not, 

* " This noble city contains many Along one of the causeways [the 
fine and magnificent houses, which Chapultepec] that lead into the city 
may be accounted for from the fact are laid two [water] pipes, constructed 
that all the nobility of the country, of masonry, [doubtful] each of which 
who are the vassals of Montezuma, is two paces in width, and about five 
have houses in the city, in which they feet in height. . . . The inhabitants 
reside a certain part of the year ; of this city pay greater regard to the 
and, besides, there are numerous style of their mode of living, and are 
wealthy citizens who also possess fine more attentive to elegance of dress and 
houses. All these persons, in addi- politeness of manners than those of 
tion to the large and spacious apart- other provinces and cities, since, as 
ments for ordinary purposes, have the cacique Montezuma has his resi- 
others, both upper and lower, that dence in the capital, and all the no- 
contain conservatories of flowers, bility, his vassals, are in the constant 



396 



FABULOUS DESCRIPTIONS OF MEXICO. 



after all, its most striking feature. It lies rather in the 
credulity — not of the Spaniards, whose belief was regu- 
lated by authority — but in that of the whole civilized 
world, which credited these remarkable narrators without 



habit of meeting there, a general 
courtesy of demeanor necessarily pre- 
vails For, as I have already 

stated, what can be more wonderful 
than that a barbarous monarch, as 
he is, should have every object found 
in his dominions imitated in gold, 
silver, precious stones, and feathers, 
the gold and silver being wrought so 
naturally as not to be surpassed by 
any smith in the world, the stone- 
work executed with such perfection 
that it is difficult to conceive what 
instruments could have been used, 
and the feather-work superior to the 
finest production in wax and embroi- 
dery He possessed out of the 

city as well as within numerous villas, 
each of which had its peculiar sources 
of amusement, and all were con- 
structed in the best possible manner 
for the use of a great prince or lord. 
Within the city, his palaces were so 
wonderful that it is hardly possible 
to describe their beauty and extent. 
I can only say that in Spain there is 
nothing equal to them. There was 
one palace somewhat inferior to the 
rest, attached to which was a beauti- 
ful garden, with balconies extending 
over it, supported by marble columns, 
and having a floor formed of jasper 
elegantly inlaid. There were apart- 
ments in this palace sufficient to lodge 
two princes of the highest rank with 
their retinues. . . . The emperor has 
another beautiful palace, with a lai'ge 
court-yard, paved with handsome 
flags, in the style of a chess-board. 



" Every day, as soon as it was 
light, six hundred nobles and men 
of rank were in attendance at the 
palace, who either sat or walked 
about the halls and galleries, and 
passed their time in conversation, 
but without entering the apartments 

where his person was Daily 

his larder and wine-cellar were open 
to all who wished to eat and drink. 
The meals were served by three hun- 
dred youths, who brought on an infi- 
nite variety of dishes ; indeed, when- 
ever he dined or supped, the table 
was loaded with every kind of flesh, 
fish, and vegetables that the country 
produced. The meals were served in 
a large hall, in which Montezuma 
was accustomed to eat, and the dishes 
quite filled the room, which was cov- 
ered with mats, and kept very clean. 
He sat on a small cushion curiously 
wrought of leather. He is also dressed 
four times every day in four different 
suits, entirely new, which he never 
wears a second time. None of the 
caciques who enter his palace have 
their feet covered, and when those for 
whom he sends enter his presence, 
they incline their heads and look 
down, bending their bodies ; and 
when they address him, they do not 
look him in the face ; this arises from 
excessive modesty and reverence. . . 
. . No sultan, or other infidel lord, 
of whom any knowledge now exists, 
ever had so much ceremonial in bis 
court." — Folsom's Cortez. 



MEXICO AS AN INDIAN CAPITAL. 397 



either scrutiny or evidence. The violation of natural 
laws, which their statements involved, may not have been 
readily detected when philosophy hardly existed as a 
science. But how shall we account for that blinking of 
the gross discrepancies between them ? Is a love of the 
marvellous so inveterate in man that critics, even, shut 
their eyes to the most palpable contradictions ? 

Could Mexico have then been seen as it now appears — 
a modern city, built on an antique pattern — our authors 
might well have painted it in oriental colors, and almost 
fancied, too, some lingering resemblance to the great cities 
of the Moorish caliphate within its time-marked palaces. 
As the occupants of some chamber upon a house-top,* in 
the day season, they might dream themselves, perhaps, in 
such a capital as they have fabricated for Montezuma. 
Domes, and minarets [steeples], and elevated battlements 
cast strange shadows in the rarified atmosphere, by moon- 
light, and make a picture so unreal that the visiter of 
to-day might almost fancy the actual existence of such a 
world as Cortez only figured. Untrue in fact — untrue 
even in fancy — his wild assertions have grown almost reali- 
ties by passing so long unquestioned. Generation after 
generation allowed their taste and their architectural 
plans to be influenced by an imagined resemblance to 
something that had graced the spot before, and uncontra- 
dicted fabrications thus became almost truths. 

This valley at the sea-level would have been for 
ever jungle, a dwelling-place for wild beasts, for the 

* Such was the author's lodging the first -winter he visited Mexico. 



398 MEXICO AS AN INDIAN CAPITAL. 



screech-owl and the bittern to enjoy unmolested; and 
that such a spot^ perpetually on the verge of inundation, 
— ^where the difference between the land and water can 
be measured by inches, — should be occupied by a large 
city, demonstrates both the purity of the atmosphere and 
the uniformity of evaporation, which for centuries has 
maintained this slight elevation. But the proximity of 
the two surfaces produces disagreeable results — stagnation 
and decomposition — the festering evils of an undrained 
valley, though neutralized in its lower levels by salt and 
sterility. Sewerage is necessarily upon the surface — the 
drains of the city cess-pools are its street ditches, or 
canals. All poetic illusion vanishes, when from moonlight 
on the housetop we descend to the sober reality of day. 
Since the time of Cortez the resources of engineering 
have been exhausted in attempts to establish any mate- 
rial change, without tunnelling the mountain, so as to 
drain Tezcuco laguna. These very defects fulfilled the 
Indian idea of a stronghold, as they at all times insured 
them that security which a circumvallation of mud and 
water could furnish. Beyond this, we will not affirm the 
famous capital of the Aztecs differed materially from an 
ordinary Indian village of the first class. 

Before entering at large upon this " city of the geni," 
both Cortez and Diaz describe the visits of ceremony ex- 
changed with Montezuma and one of the narrators. The 
alleged speeches on either side are given by both authors. 
As narrated by Cortez, his were straightforward and to 
the purpose ; he had to lull the suspicions of his victim, 
that he might not escape the snare. But, according to 



INTERYIEW WITH MONTEZUMA. 399 



Diaz, Cortez opened the conversation with an exceedingly 
inappropriate attempt at religious proseljtism. He paves 
the way for this discourse thus : " Our monarch had re- 
ceived intelligence of him [Montezuma] and of his great 
power, and had expressly sent us to his country to beg 
of him and his subjects to become converts to the Christ- 
ian faith, for the salvation of their souls, and that we 
only adored one true God, as he had previously, in some 
degree, explained on the downs [sea-shore] to his ambas- 
sadors."* Still more inappropriately, when Cortez visits 
Montezuma in his palace, and is received with the great- 
est ceremony, he is represented as commencing : " We 
were Christians, believing in one true God only, Jesus 
Christ, who suffered and died for our salvation. We 
prayed to the cross, as an emblem of that cross on which 
our Lord and Saviour was crucified." We here see the 
difference between the Phoenician and Spaniard is not in 
the act of praying to the emblem, but the tradition by 
which they explain their idolatry. " These figures," Diaz 
continues, " on the contrary, which he [Montezuma] con- 
sidered as gods were no gods, but devils, which were evil 
spirits. It was very evident how powerless, and what 
miserable things they were, since, in all those places 
where he [Cortez] had planted the cross, those gods durst 
no longer make their appearance. "f 

These addresses, though doubtless never uttered, serve 
to show the unmixed paganism of the Spaniards in the 

generation succeeding the conquest, and the kind of reli- 

« 

* Diaz, vol. I., page 224. f lUd., page 225. 



400 SEIZURE OF MONTEZUMA. 



gion which supplanted the worship of the Great Spirit at 
Mexico. 

The farce played out, both parties prepared to execute 
their well-laid stratagem. It is idle to say no proof of 
sinister design on the part of Montezuma exists. Why, 
then, did he suffer the Spaniards to enter his capital unre- 
sisted ? Suspicious by nature, and addicted to stratagem, 
an Indian would hardly allow this secure retreat to be 
invaded by a handful of armed men, but to effect their 
destruction. Cortez only anticipated his enemy, and 
simply took advantage of the Indian's deceit to carry out a 
long-meditated counterplot. Men of different races, repug- 
nant to each other in taste, in habits, and religion, were in 
arms within the limits of a small island. Between these 
collision was inevitable. It was only a question of time, 
and the Spanish commander availed himself of his posi- 
tion, to extend what at best was but an armistice, by the 
surprise and capture of Montezuma. The pretext was 
the falling off in supplies, and in attentions on the part 
of the Indians to their Spanish guests. It was, however, 
only a pretext; for the stock of corn, in an Indian village, 
would be soon exhausted, by a large addition to the 
number of its consumers, and the idle curiosity of savages 
as quickly gratified. Cortez seems to have waited to the 
last moment at which he could hope successfully to put 
in execution his original project of seizing the person of 
the Indian emperor ; for already the Spanish occupancy 
began to weigh as a burden. The Conquistador was not a 
man to waste words in discussion when the time had come 
to act; and the scene, at the arrest, since invented for 
dramatic effect, we shall pass unnoticed. The words ex- 



ADVANTAGE OF MONTEZUMA's CAPTURE. 401 



changed on the occasion must have been brief, and to 
the purpose, much as Cortez represents them, and not 
as dramatized by the historians. A band of resolute 
soldiers, ready to do his bidding, were more potent than 
words, words that had to be twice translated to be com- 
prehended by the party addressed. It was a complete 
surprise, and as resistance was vain, Montezuma, yielding 
himself with Indian stoicism to the will of his captors, was 
led an unresisting prisoner to their quarters. So well had 
the plot been laid, so adroitly had it been executed, that 
the possession of this valuable hostage was gained without 
even a street tumult. Much jpious indignation has been 
expressed at so gross a breach of faith as this act is repre- 
sented to have been. But these ideas are out of place in 
savage war. The faith of treaties, the rights of hospitali- 
ty, the respect due to the exalted station of the victim, 
are but figures of speech which neither would regard for 
a moment, if they traversed well-matured plans. The 
crime chargeable to Cortez is not then an abuse of hospi- 
tality, it is the original design that made it necessary. 

The Conquistador did not misjudge the advantage 
which a possession of the person of the emperor con 
ferred. In his name Cortez became the ruler of the tribes, 
or, to use his own language, " He [Montezuma] immedi- 
ately requested that I would designate the Spaniards 
whom I wished to send on this business, and he distri- 
buted them, five by five, among many provinces and 
cities ; . . . and with them he sent some of his own 23eo- 
ple, and directed them to go to the governors of provinces 
and cities, and say that I commanded each one of them 



26 



402 ADVANTAGE OF MONTEZUMA'S CAPTURE. 



to give a certain proportion of gold, wliicli he prescribed. 
Accordingly, all those caciques to whom he sent, contri- 
buted freely what he demanded of themj . . . we 
fomid that the fifth part belonging to your majesty 
amounted to thirty-two thousand four hundred dollars."* 
He further writes, " In these concerns, and others of no 
less advantage to your royal highness, I was employed 
from the 8th November, 1519, to May, 1520."* Thus, 
Montezuma was but a tool, a name by which the Indians 
were held in subjection, and kept to washing gold, until 
the disturbance created by the arrival of Narvaez over- 
threw this policy. When that hostile expedition w^as 
turned into a reinforcement, it w^as hardly politic to con- 
tinue the same state of things. For the lawful accomplish- 
TO.ent of his plans, he had the Aztecs in the right position. 
They had become the vassals of the Spanish sovereign, 
and if hostilities ensued, their enslavement would be the 
just punishment of rebellion, even in the opinion of the 
Hieronomite brothers.f Active war, too, was as necessary 
now as peace had been before. A host of new adven- 
turers were yet to be provided for, and to be employed. 
In the ignoble duties of the garrison, their leader could 
hardly hope to hold them in subordination. It is idle, 
then, to speculate on the immediate cause of the out- 
break. It may have been the unprovoked slaughter of 
five hundred Indians by Alvarado, in the absence of 
Cortez, as is asserted, or it may have been due to Cortez 
himself, in sending Ordaz to bring back by force the 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 126. to, to protect the Indians from cru- 

t The commission already referred elty. 



EXPEDITION AGAINST NARVAEZ. 403 



women of his harem.* Either act may have hastened it, 
but the result was inevitable, after the name of Mon- 
tezuma ceased to charm. Though the hostile spirit, 
which occasionally manifested itself before the march 
against Narvaez, burst forth in the absence of Cortez, 
it apparently ceased on his return with an overwhelming 
force. But when their women were seized by violence, 
fury, rather than courage, seemed to possess them. 

The regular order of the Avar was here broken by 
this episode of Narvaez. We have followed Diaz and 
Cortez thus far throughout, reducing their hyperboles to 
realities, and rejecting their fabrications. They dijBfer not 
only in the style, but in the character of their inventions. 
Cortez confines himself to the transforming of Indian 
villages into metropolitan cities, and their war parties into 
imperial armies, to be swept away by the torrent of Span- 
ish invasion. Victory over the infidels is the result of 
every movement. Diaz, on the other hand, while moderat- 
ing his numerals to such a degree as makes the narratives 
irreconcilable, devotes himself to supplying a religious 
phase to the war, and to exhibit the pious conduct of his 
armed missionary, whose zeal he represents as so over- 
whelming that the last injunction put into his mouth is 
one to Montezuma, " to see that the image of the holy 
Virgin and the cross were constantly decorated with green 
boughs ; that the church [chapel] was kept clean, and 
wax lights burning night and day on the altar, and not to 
allow his papas [medicine-men, or conjurers, called also 
priests by the Spaniards] to sacrifice any human beings."^ 

* Diaz, vol. I., page 334. f Ibid., page 303. 



404 BATTLE WITH NARVAEZ. 



After this 2)ious exhibition, our missionari/ sends his con- 
cubines to Tacuba, for safe-keeping, and then starts on 
his expedition against Narvaez. 

In the affair of Narvaez there is again a disagreement, 
but the order of variance is reversed. It was safe for 
Cortez to magnify the number of Indians who opposed 
him, but not to exaggerate the Spaniards in the expedi- 
tion of Narvaez, for the actual number of these last was 
registered. Thus he states those sent against him as only 
eight hundred.* But Diaz, under no constraint, raises 
the roll to fifteen hundred,f and kills off the extra num- 
ber in the night retreat, triste noche. According to Cortez, 
Narvaez had ten or twelve pieces of ordnance : Diaz has 
forty, and says he was present at the capture of a battery 
of eighteen.^ Once they agree — in the number of horses 
— in both they are eighty. The battle which ensued, 
between Cortez and Narvaez, was fought during a rainy 
night. It was hardly a battle, but rather a farce, to im- 
pose upon the discomfited partisan, whose officers had 
been bribed, and men seduced, before the affair began. It 
was a precedent to the victories " by purchase," which in 
the present day form so striking a feature of the military 
annals of Mexico ; victories in which no lives are sacri- 
ficed, but those of such as are insensible to reason ! We 
may dispose, therefore, of this return to the coast in a 
single paragraph. The hostile meeting and total defeat of 
Narvaez, and the incorporation of his force with that of 
the traitor Velasquez had sent him to capture, and return 
prisoner to Cuba, scarcely needs a comment. That the 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 128. f Diaz, vol. I., page 322. 



HOSTILITIES IN THE CAPITAL. 



405 



battle terminated so auspiciously was the effect of gold, 
and the value of promises, not the want of courage in 
Narvaez or the display of prowess in Cortez. 

On the return of the conquistador from the rout of 
Narvaez, the hostilities which had broken out during his 
absence were suspended. The Indians, acting on their 
original plan, or overawed by his greatly augmented force, 
made no opposition to his re-entering their capital. 




EETUEN TO THE CITY AFTER DEFEAT OF NARVAEZ. 



This time he came by the route of Otumba, and the 
causeway of Tepeac, or Gaudalupe, on the north side, 
having marched around the mountains by the plains of 
Apam, instead of crossing directly from Tlascala. He 
brought with him the whole force of the united armies, 



406 CONTEST AROUND THE SPANISH QUARTERS. 



stated by Diaz at thirteen hundred, with ninety-six horses, 
in one place ;* in another, " nearly sixteen hundred, with 
seventy-nine horses,f and two thousand auxiliaries." But 
the whole, including Indians, could not have exceeded a 
thousand men. Again, fairly settled in his old quarters, 
he sent for his women, as before mentioned ; whereupon 
hostilities were resumed with fury. This was June 24th, 
1520.J Both parties were now prepared for a final 
struggle. To the ordinary repugnance men have to an- 
other race, a sense of outrage even to Indian ideas of 
morality, gave these latter an energy that for a time 
compensated their inferiority in warlike means. They 
fought like demons, rather than men, and many a Sjpan- 
iard paid dearly for his crimes. 

Rarely do we find, in military annals, a more thrilling 
account of encounters, assaults, sorties, and hand to hand 
combats, constant alarms by night, and hair-breadth 
escapes by day, than that Cortez furnishes of the memo- 
rable siege, sustained in his quarters, in the midst of "the 
greatest and noblest city in the whole new world."§ Now 
buildings within the enclosure are set on fire, and are 
torn down to check the progress of the flames. Again, the 
enemy who have scaled the walls are to be driven back, 
and then a well-projected sortie is to be repulsed. So hard 
pressed were they at last on every side, that the imperial 
shadow, Montezuma, was brought out by the Spaniards 
to appease the fury of the besiegers. At the sight of their 
venerated chief, the weapons of the assailants were low- 



» Diaz, vol. I., page 334. + Ibid., page 356. 

t Ihid., page 336. I Folsom's Cortez, page 145. 



DEATH OF MONTEZUMA. 



407 



ered, and a profound silence succeeded to the shouts of 
battle/ A short exhortation to peace was all the mad- 
dened warriors could hear,* before a missile, sent by 
chance or design, struck the sachem to the earth while 
addressing them. Such a public indignity was a mortal 
wound that he could not survive. He refused surgical 
aid, and was soon a corpse. Again the battle raged with 
renewed violence; movable towers were constructed, to 
be used as batteries for cannon, but they were soon broken 
and dismantled. Houses were captured, one by one, and 
burned or pulled down, so as daily to enlarge the open 
space around the Spanish quarters, while constant sorties 
were made in the direction of the short causeway of 
Tacuba, with the view of opening a passage to the main 



* This is not an extraordinary re- 
sult, after the -war-spirit had become 
rampant. The only remarkable fea- 
ture in the narrative is, that violence 
should have been done to the person 
of the sachem. His deposition was 
the natural result of a change of 
policy. 

In this respect the statesman of the 
forest is in no safer position than the 
civilized politician. Brandt, in the 
zenith of his popularity, presumed to 
exhort his confederates to peace, vrhen 
determined on joining in the memor- 
able war of the north-western frontier. 
Instantly his influence was gone, and 
from that moment he was regarded 
only as a relic of the past. 

The case is thus stated by his once 
secretary to the author: — The Iroquois 
confederacy, after continuing to act in 
harmony for about two hundred years, 
had been severed at our revolutionary 
war. 



One party had sided with the revo- 
lutionists, and remained at their old 
homes in the " States ;" another party, 
with Brandt at their head, had retired 
to Canada, preferring to live under 
the king's dominion. 

In a new confederacy, formed 
among the North-Western Indians, 
the Iroquois of Brandt's party held a 
conspicuous part. 

In a general council of this new 
confederacy, held after the peace of 
Paris, the question of renewing the 
war with the United States was dis- 
cussed. Brandt, as the head of the 
peace party, deprecated further hos- 
tilities with his usual eloquence, but 
Captain Tom McGee, a young chief, 
advocated war, and carried the coun- 
cil against Brandt. 

Immediately Brandt withdrew with 
his little band from the confederacy, 
and died in comparative disfavor. 



40S CAPTURE OF THE GREAT PYRAMID. 



land. At night the defenders dressed their wounds, and 
repaired the breaches in their works. Thus were they 
occupied night and da}^, without cessation. 

Constantly annoyed by missiles thrown from the top of 
the great mound, Cortez finally resolved to rid himself of 
that difficulty. He summoned a select party of his men, 
and made a sortie for that purpose. Without loss they 
forced an entrance into the alleged enclosure that sur- 
rounded it, and boldly charged up the sides of the pyra- 
mid. Step by step the Indians defended their position ; 
and step by step, and breast to breast, the Spaniards 
ascended the slippery height. At last the summit was 
gained, and its defenders hurled headlong down, to be 
slaughtered by the guards below. In these fearful hand 
to hand struggles, the assailant is ordinarily successful — 
the very inequality of the contest inciting him to put 
forth apparently superhuman efibrt. That for the pos- 
session of this height w^as fairly fought, and bravely won, 
we have no doubt; and we have to regret the foolish 
attempts to exalt its importance, by exaggerating the num- 
ber of those engaged in its defence — nearly five hundred, 
according to Cortez.* Not an unreasonable number; but 
one which Diaz increases to three or four thousand.^ 

The siege continued still, however, without decisive 
results, from the 24th of June until the 1st of July, the 
sorrowful night of Cortez ; but which Diaz fixes as the 
10th. J The true reason of that night retreat of the 
Spaniards, we cannot now determine. The cause assigned 
by Cortez, as is too often the case, is undoubtedly untrue. 

* FoLsoii's Cortez, page 153. f Diaz, vol. I., page 342. % Ibid., page 256. 



CAUSE FOR THE RETREAT. 409 



" The Indians," he says, " boasted they were so numerous 
as to enable them to sacrifice twenty-five thousand of 
their number, to destroy one Spaniard."* Diaz adds, 
" All our attempts to fire the houses, or pull them down, 
were fruitless, as they stood in the midst of the ivater ! 
and were connected to each other by drawbridges only."-|- 
A flat contradiction to a statement of Cortez, who declares 
he fired three hundred in the street of Tacuba alone, at 
a single sortie, before the Indians could rally ; and even 
when they did, he turned and destroyed the buildings of 
another street. J In the midst of such clouds, we have to 
feel our way slowly. 

The most perilous step in Indian war is a retreat. 
Better is it to risk the alternative of death firmly, than 
to present the least symptom of faltering or hesitation. 
The savage, like the wild animal of the forest, is often 
cowed by a bold front, but lashes himself into fury at the 
yielding of his adversary. This night retreat was the 
great mistake of the campaign, for any reason that has 
yet appeared, and almost proved fatal to the whole 
Spanish force. Water must have been abundant, for the 
siege occurred in the midst of the rainy season ; and if pro- 
visions were wanting, the houses of the natives could have 
furnished a supply of corn, to be eaten with the flesh of 
their horses. The invested quarters might have been 
turned into a fortress begirt with a wet ditch, while with 
the cannon an open space could gradually have been 
cleared, in which no Indian might safely venture. But 

* Cortez, page 155. f Diaz, vol. I., page 341. % Folsom's Cortez, page 155, 



410 NIGHT RETREAT FROM MEXICO. 



all the advantages of a central position were lost from 
this movement, which appears to have been the result 
of one of those unaccountable panics, which afterwards 
astonish the very actors themselves. In our own history 
we have had several instances of disastrous retreats before 
an Indian enemy. But all combined were unequal to the 
sufferings of Cortez and his band in the triste noche. 

The exact date of this event, which has attracted so 
much discussion, is entirely immaterial. Whether it was 
the first day of July, or the tenth, matters little; the 
main features of the affair are unquestionable. The 
reader may easily fancy the scene presented by a body 
of several hundred footmen, horsemen, cannon-bearers, 
women, and prisoners, huddled together in thick darkness, 
with their baggage, materiel, and armor, upon a narrow 
causeway, having a wide opening, to be crossed only by 
wading and climbing the opposite bank. On either side 
were ditches, and a bog, both covered with infuriated 
savages, howling and yelling, and with every Indian 
device to create confusion among the crowded fugatives. 
Those who maintained a hold upon the muddy roadway 
were in danger of being trampled under foot by their 
terror-stricken companions ; those who slipped from it met 
a certain death in the muddy bath into which they fell. 
Cortez, who led the van, was the first to reach the main 
land ; he says by swimming,* more likely by leaping his 
horse over the smaller openings, after he had crossed the 
main one by his movable bridge. His alleged return to 

* FoLsoJi's Cortez, page 160. 



NIGHT RETKEAT FROM MEXICO. 



411 




NIGHT RETREAT TO TACUBA. 



the rear, througli the disordered multitude, is a little 
apocryphal ; but in no other part could his services have 
been more necessary. Affright and confusion caused 
greater destruction than the weapons of the enemy. The 
struggle was of that kind in which the soul of an Indian 
delights ; when his frail weapons acquire a tenfold strength 
from the disorder of his foe. Leon and Alvarado covered 
the column from the furious onslaught of the enemy, with 
a force of two hundred and fifty foot and twenty cavalry. 
Ultimately Alvarado was unhorsed, and on the point of 
falling into the hands of those who had doomed him to 



412 NIGHT RETREAT. — (^TRISTE NOCHE.) 



the torture, for his unprovoked massacre, when he leaped 
the Salta de Alvarado and escaped alone. The cannon- 
bearers sank with their burdens into the all-absorbing 
mud, or met their death from the spears of the assailants. 
The distinguished prisoners perished either at the hands of 
their guards, or from being trampled upon by the fugitives, 
but not by the weapons of their countrymen. Twenty- 
four of the horses were also lost,* most likely in unsuccess- 
ful attempts to leap the ditches,f and one hundred and 
fifty Spaniards.! This is the estimate of Cortez, and most 
likely correct. But Diaz — who had an extra amount to 
dispose of from overstating the Narvaez men — puts the 
loss at eight hundred and fifty, including a few killed in 
the subsequent retreat. § Considering all the difficulties 
to be surmounted in this "night of sorrow," the loss of life 
is remarkably small ; the greatest sacrifice was the neces- 
sary abandonment of the entire materiel. The first decla- 
ration of both is, that the loss of treasure was almost total ; 
but Diaz, afterwards, in accounting for the purchase of a 
new outfit, confesses, " that of the gold stowed away by 
the Narvaez men, and our own troops, particularly by the 
horse, a great quantity was certainly saved. Besides 
that, many of the eighty Tlascalans, who were loaded 
with the gold, and retreated from Mexico in the van- 
guard, got safely over the bridges."|| That is, nothing 
was really lost 1but the imaginary treasure, now grown 
inconveniently large, and which had to be accounted for 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 161. ^ Diaz, vol. I., page 356. 

t Ihid., page 158. j| Ibid., page 382. 

% Ibid., page 161. 



INCIDENTS OF THE RETREAT. 413 



to the emperor.* The Conquistador was too good a soldier 
to hazard his gold ; it was therefore in the advance, and 
came safely off. 

In so important an event it is as well to recapitulate. 
There was probably no gold lost, as mentioned above. 
Cortez could not otherwise have made the extensive pur- 
chases he did in San Domingo, Jamaica, and Vera Cruz, 
for his third expedition. And a correct statement of the 
numbers brought by Narvaez added to the general muster 
of forces at Tlascala, would hardly leave a margin for 
more than one hundred and fifty, as the total loss in men. 
Aiming to conciliate the Aztecs, it would have been 
grossly impolitic to introduce a large body of undisciplined 
Tlascalans into the city. The loss of the Indian allies 
must, therefore, have been small. As for the millions of 
assailants, they were huckram men; panic, alone, peopled 
the air with them. The place of battle was not accessi- 
ble to large bodies. The causeway ditches, through the 
marsh, were broad and shallow ; there a small number, 
in canoes suddenly collected, might find places to assail 
the Spaniards on their flanks. Necessarily, the most de- 
termined contest was with the rear. This had been judi- 
ciously made up partly of veterans, and partly of the 
Narvaez men, supported by twenty horse.f As this force 
suffered severely, and sustained nearly all the loss, it is 
probable the Indians succeeded in making a lodgment in 
their rear, and prevented the restoration of the temporary 



^ "Abandoning the garrison together with much wealth, belonging to 
your highness." — Folsom's Cortez, page 159. 
f Diaz, vol. I., p. 351. 



414 FUGITIVES ON THE HILL OF REMEDIOS. 



bridge, after it had once fallen.* Besides mere ditches, 
there seems to have been but one broad opening in the 
causeway ; the others were only open drains, to pass the 
local accumulations of water to the lower levels of the 
laguna. Most of those who crossed by the bridge doubt- 
less reached the main land, but the larger part of the 
rear-guard, not having done so before it fell, perished. 
This, perhaps, is the correct version of the conflicting 
accounts of the night retreat, which has been seized upon 
by the various narrators as a convenient occasion of 
restoring the equilibrium between their own exaggera- 
tions and the subsequent muster-rolls. One of the dead, 
too, in this convenient slaughter, was named as royal 
treasurer in the despatches ; so that all discrepancies were 
safely balanced in this " night of sorrows." 

The barren hill of Bemedios-f presented a sad and sick- 
ening spectacle when morning dawned. The escaped of 
the late garrison, weary, wounded, cold, and hungry, 
their clothing saturated with alkaline water, tequisqidta, 
— themselves stiff, from its effects on their too common 
infirmity, hurried through the village of Tacuba, and 
huddled together on that elevated position. But there 
no food could be procured, and they had but miserable 
rags with which to dress their wounds.J Yet, even in 
their changed circumstances, the Spaniards thought them- 
selves fortunate in such a refuge ; they could, at least, 
abide in security until darkness again enabled them to 
resume their flight. How great a change a few days had 

* Diaz, vol. I., page 349. 

f See supplemental note, " Our Lady of Remedies." 

X Diaz, vol. I., page 353. 



EETREAT CONTINUED. 415 



effected ! But a little time before their leader had en- 
tered the island capital of the Aztecs, with the prestige 
of an unparalleled victory, and in possession of a well- 
appointed army. He had since succumbed to the pas- 
sionate assaults of half-armed Indians, and now, reduced 
to a disorganized band of fugitives, that army was resting 
for darkness to cover its escape from an hitherto des- 
pised force ! The blessed Virgin's interposition here in 
staunching the wounds of the survivors made it a place 
of pilgrimage for centuries. But since the revolution of 
castes the memory of Cortez and his companions has 
fallen into disfavor, so, too, has the Virgin of the Reme- 
dies — Los Remedios.^ She was identified with the con- 
quering race, and in the resurrection of the children 
of the soil her image had to seek another asylum. Its 
nose is broken, it has lost an eye, but it is a virgin still, 
though certainly an antique one. 

At length the hour arrived to resume the retreat. It 
was midnight. With fires lighted and the usual devices 
to conceal a movement, the Spaniards stole from their 
quarters and threaded their way among the hills, bogs, 
and pools, which then, as now, characterize the route 
from Tacuba to the neighborhood of the laguna of Joltoca 
or San Ghristobal. They were not, however, undis- 
covered by their watchful enemies, who continued to 
annoy them with arrows, stones, and revilings-f through 
the march. In one of the passes among the hills, a 
wounded man died ; and a horse was killed, over which 

^ See supplemental note, " Our Lady of Eemedies." 
t Diaz, vol. I,, page 354. 



416 



RETREAT CONTINUED. 




RETREAT TO OTUMBA. 



last they deeply grieved. To a military mistake of their 
enemies, they alone owed their escape. Possessing an 
interior line of communication, it was in their power to 
select the most desirable point and moment for attacking 
the Spaniards. In accordance with the custom of Indian 
warfare, some intricate defile or pass should have been 
chosen for the grand assault, where cavalry could not be 
made available. Instead of following this prudent sug- 
gestion, however, the open plain of Otumba was selected. 



KETEEAT TO OTUMBA. 417 



The Aztec fell into the common error of victors — despising 
the flying enemy, he took the fatal resolve of intercept- 
ing him in a pitched field. The result was such as might 
have been anticipated. While preparations for the great 
battle were making, the fugitives, comparatively undis- 
turbed, had time to recover their spirits, and hope re- 
vived before the not difficult alternative was presented 
by the lines of an undisciplined enemy. 

The first night after leaving Remedios, the Spaniards 
fortified themselves upon a hill, near a tower, having 
made three leagues* (about ten miles), according to 
Cortez ;-\ — a good day's march under the circumstances ; 
but according to Diaz, the march to Otumba was made 
on the second or third day, which is impossible. On the 
second day, in the account of Cortez,^ they marched 
around several lakes — the laguna of Joltoca doubtless, 
and perhaps also the still more northern one of Zum- 
pango — and reached a deserted village, where, an abun- 
dance of corn being found, they remained two days to 
refresh themselves, On the fifth night, of Cortez, J they 
took up their quarters in some straggling huts, with little 
food. The sixth day, which is the first of Diaz,§ a horse 
killed by the enemy, was eaten by the hungry soldiers, 
even to the skin. The plan adopted that night, of leaving 
the wounded to themselves, Cortez blasphemously claims 
as an inspiration of the Holy Ghost, |1 as on the next day, 
the seventh of the retreat, the great battle of Otumba was 

* The Spanish league is two and § Lockhakt's Diaz, vol. I., page 
three quarters of a mile. 354. 

t Folsom's Cortez, page 162. || This blasphemy is shocking. 

;|: Ibid., page 163. 
27 



418 GREAT BATTLE OF OTUMBA. 



fought. To ,this suggestion of Cortez, the cardinal, Arch- 
bishop Lorenzano, responds : " This is right, as God alone 
could have performed such miracles ; and this ought to 
cover with confusion those who detract from the merits 
of the Conquest. Cortez was another Moses, when he 
said : ^ The Lord will fight for us :' Exodus xiv." * A 
queer kind of Moses ! The Moses of the king's historian ! 
The leader rather of " Satan's chosen people" in the valley 
of Mexico ! 

The battle of Otumba surpassed in magnitude any other 
ever fought with Indians. The braves of the whole con- 
federacy were assembled to intercept the fugitives, and 
the Aztec host fought bravely ; bravely as was their wont 
with a retreating enemy. But the result was inevitable. 
History rarely furnishes an instance in which a retreating 
force has been successfully intercepted. Even the supple 
Alvarado was brave, w^hen flight was impossible, while 
Cortez performed prodigies of valor. Fear itself added to 
the courage of the Spaniards. The Paladin, Rolando, 
Amadis de Gaul — heroes as familiar to Diaz as to Don 
Quixote — could hardly have exceeded the achievements of 
the Conquistador and his companions ; for though now but 
a feeble folk, yet the combined force of the whole Aztec 
empire was scattered before them. On this occasion, as 
in the days of Homer, the demigods were unwilling to 
trust entirely to fate, or the prowess of mortals. St. 
James of Compostella brought a lance to the assistance 
of his favorite S]3ain ; for Diaz informs us, that " one of 
Guatamozin's chief officers, who was present at the 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 165. 



THE BATTLE CONCLUDED. 419 



battle, beheld him with his own eyes as he afterwards 
affirmed."* On this, an Indian's testimony, it has become 
the established belief, that this wonderful victory was 
solely owing to the visible interposition of San Diego and 
his venerable white horse ! As in the battles under the 
walls of Troy, the favorite of the gods wins the day, so 
heroes are but pawns in the hands of a patron saint. 

Though the little phalanx remained unbroken, in the 
charge it was enveloped with enemies, and its progress 
through the living mass apparently impossible. The 
showers of missiles upon it, even more than the pressure 
of superior numbers, was fast exhausting its strength, not- 
withstanding the valorous blows of the saint — dealing 
death to the infidels, and victory to the beloved of the 
Virgin — when an event occurred which created a panic 
among the undisciplined assailants. It is thus described 
by Cortez : " We were engaged during a greater part of 
the day, until it pleased God that one should fall who 
must have been a leading personage amongst them ; at his 
death the battle ceased."-|- The event thus elegantly 
expressed, throws into the shade all the gaudy descrip- 
tions of the Spanish historians, with their saints and 
supernatural machinery. Diaz is silent as to the number 
slain, as is Cortez. But it is not likely many Spaniards 
fell, since their closed ranks were never broken during 
that eventful day. 

Hungry and without suitable means of dressing their 
wounds, they then passed the night at a solitary house 
near by, and on the morrow, resuming their march, 

* Lockhart's Diaz, page 354. f Ibid., page 165. 



420 THE AUTHOR VISITS TACUBA. 



reached the friendly territories of the Tlascalans. On 
the second day following, they entered its territory from 
the north, having come by the plains of Apam around 
the mountains. Thus ended the retreat from Mexico. 



THE AUTHOR VISITS TACUBA. 

As I rode along the street to the gate, and passed out upon the causeway 
of Tacuba — the causeway of the "Night of Sorrow" {triste noche), I natu- 
rally fell into reflections upon the righteous retribution that there overtook a 
portion of the Spaniards ; and on the mysterious ways of Providence in 
allowing Cortez and a remnant to escape, after the lives they had led in the 
city. The Indians had made a feeble resistance when Alvarado murdered 
their chiefs, and had cringed into submission when Cortez returned. But 
now their wrongs had reached that point where even Aztecs could endure no 
more. Their cup of iniquity seemed full, when Cortez, who had left a wife 
in Cuba, sent to the little village of Tacuba, called by Diaz Tlacupa, to fetch 
thence some "women of his ^OMse^oM," among whom was the daughter of 
Montezuma [he had already one daughter of Montezuma in his power], 
whom he had given in charge of the King of Tlacupa, her relative, when he 
marched against Narvaez. The women being rescued, Cortez afterward 
sent Ordaz, with four hundred men,* which brought on hostilities that ended 
in this night retreat. 

It is a prominent trait of Indian character to guard with the utmost jea- 
lousy the virtue of their wives. Even among the debased Indians of Cali- 
fornia, female infidelity is punished with death ; and I have seen the whole 
population of an Indian village, on the Upper Sacramento, thrown into the 
utmost confusion — the women howling, and the men brandishing their 
weapons — because a base Indian had sold his wife to a still baser white 
man. " Such a thing was never," they said, " done in the tribe before." 
And here we have Cortez, in contempt of even Indian notions of virtue, 
sending to bring to his harem, by violence, a second daughter of Montezuma. 

When the Aztecs were thus roused to action by the lust of Cortez, they 
assailed him with frenzy rather than with courage, until his quarters in the 
city became untenable, and then this night retreat was undertaken, in which 
the treasures ! and two sons and one daughter of Montezuma, were lost in the 

* Lockhart's Diaz, vol. I., p. 338. 



THE AUTHOR VISITS TACUBA. 421 



confused rush of a multitude over this footpath. The Indian story is, that 
Cortez slew the children of Montezuma when he found himself unable to 
carry them off. Perhaps he did ; but the probability is, that they perished 
by chance, or rather it seems to have been by chance that Cortez or any of 
his party escaped. 

The objects of interest by the road-side, after I had passed the city gate, 
were, first, the French Academy, which is well worthy of a visit for its pretty 
grounds, if nothing more. Before the author got to Tacuba, the land rose 
above the water-level of the swamp. Here a branch-road and an aqueduct 
turned off to Chapultepec, and in the angle thus formed by the two roads is 
the English burying-ground or cemetery. This resting-place of the dead can 
be and is irrigated from the aqueduct, while the art of man has been busy in 
improving the advantages that Nature has so lavishly bestowed upon it. 

Just before my first arrival in Mexico, public attention had been particu- 
larly directed to this quiet spot, from its having been chosen as the place for 
depositing the ashes of the last President of Mexico, at whose burial no holy 
water had been used, and no consecrated candles had been burned, and for the 
repose of whose soul no masses had ever been said, or other superstitious rites 
performed, and yet he slept as quietly as those who had gone to their burial 
with the pomp and circumstance of a state funeral. No priest had shrived 
his soul, his lips had not been touched with the anointing oil, nor was incense 
burned at his funeral ; yet he died in peace, declaring in his last hours that 
he had made his confession to God, and trusted in him for the pardon of his 
sins, and refused all the proffered aid of priests in facilitating his journey to 
Heaven. Thus died, and here was privately buried, the first and last Pro- 
testant President of Mexico, the only really good man that ever occupied that 
exalted station, and probably the only native Mexican who ever had the moral 
courage to denounce the religion of his fathers upon his dying bed. 

Adjoining the English cemetery, on the south side, is the American bury- 
ing-ground, which has been established since the war, where have been col- 
lected the remains of seven hundred and fifty Americans, that died or were 
killed at Mexico, and a neat monument has been erected over them. Here 
Americans that die henceforth in that city can be buried. An appropriation 
of five hundred dollars a year would make this more attractive than the 
English one, but the place has been wholly neglected by Congress since 
that worthy man, the Rev. G. G. Goss, completed his labors. There is a 
pleasure in observing the natural affinities which, in foreign countries, draw 
close together these branches of the Saxon family. A common language and 
a common religion overmaster political differences, and the English and Ame- 



422 OUR LADY OF REMEDIES. 



rican dead are laid side by side to rest until the judgment. At the south of 
the American cemetery is a vacant lot, which the King of Prussia should 
purchase, so that the Germans may no longer be dependent on Americans 
for a burying-place, and that the three great Protestant powers of the world 
— Saxons and Anglo-Saxons — may here, as they everywhere should, be drawn 
close together. After passing this necropolis, and crossing a little water- 
course, we have but a few furlongs of high land to pass, in order to reach the 
quiet Indian village of Tacuba. — Mexico and its Religion. 

TACUBA. 

Tacuba is a very small village, and is not in anywise noted except for an 
immense cypress-tree, that must have been a wonder even in the time of 
Cortez. It has the historical notoriety of being the place where hostilities 
first broke out between the Aztecs and the Spaniards, and the spot to which 
the night retreat of the latter was directed. Here the land is high and quite 
fertile, and a little way from the village are several water-mills, where the 
grain raised in this part of the valley is ground into flour. 

THE HILL OF REMEDIOS.^ 

A little way beyond Tacuba is the hill and temple of the " Virgin of Reme- 
dies." Upon this hill, within the enclosure of an Indian mound, the retreating 
party of Cortez made their first bivouac, and built fires, and dressed their 
wounds. Hence they gave to the hill the name of Los Eemedios. and the 
church afterward erected was dedicated to our Lady of Remedies. Diaz tells 
us that it became very celebrated in his time. The story of Cortez finding a 
broken-nosed image in the knapsack of one of his soldiers is mentioned 
neither by himself nor Bernal Diaz, and must have been an afterthought, to 
give plausibility to a subsequent imposition. 

OUR LADY OF REMEDIES. 
The story is, that while the fugitives were resting here, a soldier took from 
his knapsack an image with a nose broken and an eye wanting, which Cortez 
held up to adoration, and made the patron saint of the expedition ; this 
little incident so encouraged his men that they started ofi" with renewed vigor 
upon their disheartening retreat. The whole story of the Virgin is probably 
a very silly modern invention, as the bulk of Cortez' forces most likely was 
composed of that class of reprobates, who to this day are found about almost 
every West India seaport, ready for any enterprise, however hazardous. 



OUR LADY OF REMEDIES. 423 



They have no religion ; they are not even superstitious, but yield a nominal 
acquiescence to the forms of the Catholic Church. Cortez sometimes speaks 
of his efforts to convert the Indians; hut it is in such a business way as to 
appear to have been done to make an impression at home — a matter about 
which he cared little. This famous image, according to the current story, 
disappeared soon after the Conquest ; but was found about one hundred and 
fifty years afterwards, in a maguey plant, and was as much dilapidated as 
if it had been exposed to the weather for the whole of that century and a 
half. 

Such, in substance, is the tradition of the Virgin of Remedies, who for a 
century divided with the Virgin of Guadalupe the adoration of the people in 
the most amicable manner. The first monopolizing the adoration of the 
aristocracy ; the other was the favorite of the peasantry. But when the in- 
surrection of 1810 broke out, these two virgins parted company. " Viva the 
Virgin of Guadalupe !" became the war-cry of the unsuccessful rebels; while 
" Viva the Lady of Remedies \" was shouted back by the conquering forces 
of the king. The Lady of Guadalupe became suspected of insurrectionary 
designs ; while all honors were lavished upon the Lady of Remedies by those 
wishing to make protestations of their loyalty. Pearls, money, and jewels, 
were bestowed upon her by the nobility and the Spanish merchants ; and as 
one insurrectionary leader after another was totally defeated, the conquering 
generals returned to lay their trophies at the feet of the Lady of Remedies, to 
whose interposition the victory was ascribed. They carried her in triumphal 
procession through the streets of Mexico, singing a laudamus. Then it was 
that the Lady of Remedies was at the zenith of her glory. Her person was 
refulgent with a blaze of jewels ; and her temple was like that of Diana of 
Ephesus, and all about the hill on which it stood bore marks of prosperity. 

Her healing powers were then as unquestioned, as unrivalled ; and the list 
of cures which she is claimed to have effected, surpasses that of all the patent 
medicines of our day. She was an infallible healer, alike of the diseases of 
the mind and of the body. A glimpse at her broken nose and battered face, 
instantaneously cured men of democracy and unbelief. Heretics stood con- 
founded in her presence — while the halt, the lame, and the leprous hung up 
their crutches, their bandages, and their filthy rags, as trophies of her heal- 
ing power, among the flags and other evidences of her victories over the 
rebels. Nothing was beyond her skill — from mending a leaky boat, to 
securing a prize in the lottery ; giving eyes to the blind, feet to the lame, 
restoring a paralyzed limb, or healing a broken heart, to putting the baby to 
sleep. Her votaries esteemed her omnipotent, and carried her in procession 



424 OUR LADY OF REMEDIES. 



in times of drought, as the goddess of rain ; and when pestilence raged in the 
city, she was borne through the infected streets. Such was she in the times 
of her glory. 

Now all is changed. She is still a goddess, but her glory is eclipsed. 
She, like many a virgin in social life, neglected to make her market while all 
knees were bowing to her ; and now, in the sear and yellow leaf, she is a 
virgin still. Her temple is dilapidated, her garlands are faded, her gilding 
is tarnished, the buildings about her court are falling to decay — while the 
bleak hill which her temple crowns, looks tenfold more uninviting than if 
it never had been occupied. When I entered this neglected temple of a 
neglected image, a superannuated priest was saying mass, and three or four 
old crones were kneeling before her altar. Such are the effects that followed 
the revolution of Iguala. Not only was her hated rival of Guadalupe elevated 
from her long obscurity to be the national saint, but the animosity against 
this dilapidated image of Remedies was carried to that extreme of cruelty, 
that, when the Spaniards were expelled from Mexico, the passports of the 
" Lady of Remedies" were made out, and she was ordered to leave the 
country. Poor thing ! 

The porter's eye glistened at the now unwonted sight of a silver dollar, 
and he soon had me through the most secret recesses of the sanctuary. The 
only things I saw worthy of admiration were some pictures, made, as I was 
told, from down, or the feathers of the humming-bird, by which a richness 
of color was imparted to the pictures that could not be obtained from paints. 

At last we came to the back of the great altar — the curtain of damask silk 
being drawn up by a little string — we saw, sitting in a metallic maguey plant, 
a bright new Paris doll, dressed in the gaudy odds and ends of silk that make 
such a thing an attractive Christmas present for the nursery. Paste supplied 
the place of jewels, and a constellation of false pearls were at the back of her 
shoulders. The man kept his gravity, and did reverence to the poor doll; 
while I burned with indignation at being imposed upon by a counterfeit 
"universal remedy for all diseases." I had often read in the apothecaries' 
advertisements cautions against counterfeits, and rewards for their detection ; 
and I always noticed that the counterfeits were exactly in proportion to the 
worthlessness of the genuine article — and that medicine, which was utterly 
valueless itself, suffered most from the abundance of counterfeits. So it was 
with the Lady of Remedies ; after she had fallen below the dignity of a hum- 
bug, and no man was found so poor as to do her reverence, she was spirited 
away to the Cathedral of the city of Mexico, in order to save her three 
jewelled petticoats from being stolen ; and a child's doll, covered with paste 



THE RETREAT TO OTUMBA. 425 



jewels, now personified the great patron saint of the vice-kingdom of New 
Spain. 

I again mounted my horse, angry at being cheated ; and though the day 
was a most lovely one, I rode home in a fit humor to contrast the system' of 
paganism which Cortez introduced with the more poetical system which pre- 
ceded it, and to compare these cast-off child's dolls with the alleged allegori- 
cal images of the Aztecs — but, most likely, relics of a much more ancient race. 
My landlord had two boxes of such images, collected when they were cleaning 
out one of the old city canals. By way of parlor ornaments, we had a god 
of baked earth. He was sitting in a chair; around his navel was coiled 
a serpent ; his right hand rested upon the head of another serpent. This, 
according to the laws of interpreting allegories, I suppose we should under- 
stand to signify, Ihat the god had been renowned for his wisdom ; that with 
the wisdom of the serpent he had executed judgment ; and that his medita- 
tions were the profundity of wisdom. And yet this allegorical worship, 
defective as it may have been, was better certainly, than the adoration of a 
child's doll — one that had very possibly been worn out and thrown from a 
nursery, and picked up by some passing monk, to be made the goddess of 
New Spain, and clothed with three petticoats, one adorned with pearls, one 
with rubies, and one with diamonds, at an estimated cost of $3,000,000. 
Which was the least objectionable superstition ? 

THE RETREAT TO OTUMBA. 

" From this point Cortez and his party, without their women, trudged 
along the north side of the hills of Tepeac, or Guadalupe, and around the 
lakes to the plains of Otumba." — Mexico mid its Religion. 

The author has diligently examined the region of hills and bogs that make 
up the distance from this point to the lagunas of Zumpango, a,yi^ Joltoca or 
San Christobal, and from thence to Otumba, and has ventured to mark down 
what he believes to be the very track of the fugitive Spaniards. Both these 
lagunas, it may be proper here to add, are much higher than Tezcuco ; but 
their bulk is not sufficient to burst through their barrier. The highest of all, 
Zumpango, has become nearly fresh since it has been drained out of the 
valley by the cut, desagua, of Hushuaioca. 

It should be stated too, that one of the evidences of the imposture of Diaz, 
is his making Cortez travel modern roads instead of the earlier ones. Thus, 
he has made him pass to the north of the Perote in ascending to the table- 
land, enter the valley by the Rio Frio, and retreat to Otumba by Guadalupe. 



CHAPTER XII. 

BUILDING OF THE BRIGANTINES, CAMPAIGN OP TEPEACA, AND 
RETURN TO THE MEXICAN VALLEY. 

Cortez begins a war of extermination, 426 — He determines to "build a flotilla, 
427 — Cortez enslaves the Indians of Tepeaca, 429 — SuLj ligation of Tepeaca 
and founding a colony, 430 — The branding of Indian women with a hot 
iron, 430 — The Spaniards disgust the Indians with Christianity, 431 — 
Gomora's fables on this campaign, 432 — Cortez secures the passes to 
Mexico, 433— The policy of Cortez, 433 — The lagimas, and size of the 
brigantines, 434 — The difficulties encountered in building this flotilla, 435 
— A wonderful success, but marred by fables, 436 — How Cortez obtained 
supplies and friends, 436 — How he circumvented Las Casas, 437 — How 
Cortez justified his enslavement of Indians, 438 — The manner of transport- 
ing the flotilla, 439 — The fabulous number of Indians engaged, 439 — Why 
Tezcuco was selected as the flotilla station, 440 — A muster of forces, 442 — 
The passage of the mountain, 444 — Cortez' entry into Tezcuco, 445 — Cortez 
fortifies his quarters, 445 — Cortez entrapped at Iztapalapa — his night 
retreat, 446 — An explanation of the Iztapalapa affair, 447 — Death of the 
Emperor Cuetravacin, 449 — How the statement of Cortez becomes possible, 
450 — Cortez' account of it, 450 — Don Fernando, Lord of Tezcuco, 451 — A 
topographical survey of the Mexican valley, 452 — The Mexican causeways, 
452 — The maps used in this chapter, 452 — Survey of Lieut. H. L. Smith, 
U. S. A., 460. 

A RESPITE of twenty days was now allowed the weary 
and wounded soldiers, to recruit their exhausted energies, 
prior to the resumption of active hostilities. Henceforth 
the war was to be one of extermination. The outbreaks 
occurring on every side were styled rebelhon and apostasy. 
While the Spaniards were in the full tide of success, all the 
tribes through which they passed had acknowledged the 
sovereignty of Charles V., and had allowed crosses to b^ 

(426) 



FLOTILLA TO BE BUILT. 427 



erected in their villages. But when the grand army 
dwindled to a company of fugitives, its prestige was gone. 
The crosses were no longer regarded as '• good rain 
m.akers" in time of drought. The notary and his parch- 
mentj the priest and his surplice, were alike forgotten in 
the prospective return of Mexican tax-gatherers, or re- 
membered only as unavailing conjurers, inferior to the 
native medicine-men. The surest way to turn aside the 
wrath of the Aztecs was to kill all the Spaniards upon 
whom they could lay their hands. Under these changed 
circumstances ten unfortunate men, passing through the 
country, were suddenly set upon and slain, and the valu- 
ables they possessed fell into the hands of the murderers. 
Near a year had necessarily to elapse before the plan 
of attack devised by Cortez could be successfully put into 
execution against the city of Mexico. Trees were to be 
felled upon the Tlascalan mountains, and by the slow 
labor of the axe reduced to planks. Oakum, small cord- 
age, and iron, were to be brought from the seaboard. 
Pitch could be procured in the mountain forests. But all 
required time. The small flotilla to be constructed, 
though light enough to be carried over the lofty summit, 
must yet be capable of navigating the lagunas and canals 
of the Mexican valley, at least in the rainy season ; and, 
as the present one was too far advanced to be made avail- 
able, the next must be awaited. During this delay, all, 
both Spaniards and auxiliaries not required in the service 
of the shipwrights, were kept in active service, not only to 
preserve discipline, but for the more thorough subjugation 
of the country between Tlascala and the sea coast. 



428 



CHARGE OF CANNIBALISM. 




MARCH TO TEPEACA. 



That large extent of open land between the first moun- 
tain-barrier and the Mexican chain, south and east of 
Cholula and Tlascala, Cortez includes under the general 
name of Tepeaca. The scattered tribes occupying this 
mostly deserted region, were the first to feel his vengeance. 
The murder of his ten men, in crossing these plains, 
served as a pretext for hostilities. His despatch represents 
these unfortunate sufferers as loaded with treasure and 
other valuables. Their fate would be the same to-day, 
if unarmed; yet none would deem it a sufficient cause 
of war against the unoffending inhabitants. Nor did 
Cortez consider it quite a justification for that extermina- 



SUBJUGATION OF TEPEACA. 429 



tion and enslavement he meditated, in violation of the 
^^ new ordinances!' Hence the necessity of producing a 
charge so monstrous as to justify his disregard of the 
newly-established policy of the court. He had been in 
the country nearly a year, but we hear nothing about 
cannibalism from him until now. One motive, he avows, 
for his meditated cruelty, was to strike terror into the 
Mexicans. His justification to the emperor is a charge 
of cannibalism. The words of the despatch are, " besides 
having murdered the Spaniards, and rebelled against your 
majesty, these people eat human flesh."* This is his 
apology for disobeying the law. It is the fabrication of 
a libel to justify a crime. Thus was inaugurated a cam- 
paign of terrors, according to his own admission, to the 
very author of the ordinances, at a time when Las Casas 
and the Hieronomite brothers were in the West Indies, 
charged with the correction of the very abuses he had 
resolved to perpetrate. 

Our armed missionary, Cortez, the Moses of Cardinal- 
archbishop Lorenza7io, is so brief and indefinite, however, 
on the subject, we have to turn to Diaz, for the details of 
the enterprise, who must have gathered them from " Las 
Casas on Qomorar The main object of the campaign 
was to re-open communication, by the southern route, 
with Vera Cruz ; a secondary result was to gather what- 
ever might be plundered from so poor a people. The ex- 
pedition consisted of four hundred and twenty Spaniards, 
besides Tlascalan auxiliaries. f The first encounter was in 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 172. f Diaz, toI, I., page 366. 



430 BRANDING OF INDIAN WOMEN. 



some open fields of maize and maguey, with the same 
result as at Tobasco. The cavalry havmg a good opportu- 
nity to manoeuvre, scattered the savages with considerable 
slaughter. This victory was followed by their submis- 
sion and the entry of the victors into Tepeaca, and the 
founding there a colony, which Cortez named " Security- 
of-the-frontier," Securidad de la Frontera. 

Without detailing the different villages assailed and 
subjugated in succession, we may sum up, in the words 
of Diaz: ''In this way we visited Tecalco, Las Guavas, 
and others, whose names I have forgotten."* Then he 
concludes with the following remarkable statement: — 
"After peace had been restored to the whole province, 
and its inhabitants had submitted to his majesty, Cortez, 
finding there was nothing further to be done at present, 
determined, with the crown officers, to mark all the slaves 
with the iron. Notice was therefore given that every 
person was to come with his slaves to a certain house 
appointed for the purpose, that they might be marked 
with the red-hot iron. . . On the night preceding, the 
finest of the Indian females had been secretly set apart, 
so that when it came to a division among the soldiers, we 
found none left but old and ugly women. . . Another 
soldier asked Cortez if the division of the gold in Mexico 
was not a sufficient imposition ! and now he was going to 
deprive the poor soldier who had undergone so many 
hardships, and suffered from innumerable wounds, of this 
small remuneration, and not even allow him a pretty 
Indian female for a companion."-]- Thus were depravity 

* Diaz, vol. I., page 368. f Ibid., page 379. 



INDIANS DISGUSTED WITH CHRISTIANITY. 431 



and religious form united in the Spaniards, who combined 
the erection of crosses, the violation of women, branding 
and baptizing, with the establishment of the long-forgotten 
worship of the " Queen of Heaven." 

Fit successors of the Phoenicians, were the Conquista- 
dors. The heathen could hardly have equalled them in 
moral obtuseness. This Diaz, the imaginary companion 
of Cortez — whose character has been drawn under the 
eye of the church dignitaries — resembles a Sepoy in his 
negation of the common feelings of humanity, rather than 
a European existence ; embodying at once the cruelty 
and fanaticism of a Brahmin. To call the men of whom 
he is a type Christians, is a libel on Christianity. To 
call their religion Christianity, is a libel on Christ. From 
their licentious queen* — who now follows on foot a con- 



* " When the pains of labor -wore 
approaching, the pangs of remorse 
rushed in upon the queen, and re- 
proached her with her dissolute ca- 
reer. She sent for Archbishop Claret, 
a prelate who well deserves the glo- 
rious name he bears. The queen 
begged his counsel, and as he is no 
courtier, he told her Majesty that her 
conduct made her the subject of ribald 
jests ; and as she was about to be 
exposed to the perils attendant upon 
childbirth, he exhorted her to banish 
her paramour, Puig Moro, from the 
palace, and country. The increasing 
pangs of the crisis added force to the 
archiepiscopal persuasions, and a pro- 
mise was made ; but the archbishop, 
not content with the royal word, ex- 
torted a written promise to that effect. 
He followed up his success by an 
exhortation to his royal auditor to be 



reconciled to her husband ; and even 
if she felt unable to love him, he urged 
her to have more respect for the pro- 
prieties of life, and to appear con- 
stantly with him before her subjects. 
Having obtained a promise to that 
effect, he repaired to the king's apart- 
ments and gave him like counsel. 
The king's promise was, however, con- 
ditional only ; he would consent to 
be reconciled to his wife only on con- 
dition that she paid his debts, and 
that the banishment of the queen's 
paramour should be instantaneous. 
The archbishop returned with a check 
for the payment of the king's debts, 
and the other promise ; but a com- 
promise has been effected, to avoid the 
public scandal which instantaneous 
exile may occasion — and Colonel Puig 
Moro struts about amongst his fel- 
low-citizens, who have yet enough of 



432 gomora's fables. 



secrated wafer — to the lowest devotee in her reahn, we 
have the same Oriental exhibition of moral and religious 
obliquity. And thus it was that the lewd cham2Dions of 
the ever-blessed Virgin brought the very name of Chris- 
tianity to stink in the nostrils of their savage foes. 

This year, almost a blank in the despatches and in 
the narrative of Diaz, is completely filled with battles and 
sieges of the first magnitude in the history of the mag- 
niloquent Gomora, to the exceeding glory of his master. 
Immense cities and fertile provinces he finds scattered 
through this region of the had land. So intensely fabu- 
lous are his relations, they arouse even the denunciations 
of Diaz. " We are," says he, " to write one, when Go- 
mora says eighty." But with this abatement, the stories 
are a hundredfold too extravagant. The campaign of 
Tepeaca, reduced to reality, is, as we have presented it, 
famous only for the cruelties practised upon a sparse 
population, gathered here and there upon the few fertile 
portions it contains. We therefore pass to things of 
more importance — to the pacification of the tribes be- 
tween Tlascala and Mexico ; and to the opening of a 
direct route across the mountains to the great valley. 

The inhabitants of Guacahula, whose village was 
situated in a mountain pass leading to Mexico, applied to 

the leaven of loyalty in them to look men of Spanish court scandal, from 

with feelings of something akin to time immemorial. The present 

deference and respect on one who queen, as we have said, is hardly a 

sustained such intimate relations whit behind her predecessors in mo- 

with their queen." — Madrid Corre- rals, excepting her great namesake ; 

spondence. though the watchword of a success' 

The foregoing is a pretty fair speci- ful rebellion was morality. 



CORTEZ SECURES THE PASSES. 433 



Cortez to free them from tlieir oppressive Aztec garrison. 
This was a most fortunate request ; and was immediately 
complied with, as it would secure him a foothold, if suc- 
cessful, where most needed, in the prosecution of his 
ulterior designs. Accordingly a force of thirteen horse, 
two hundred foot, and three hundred — not thirty thousand 
— Indian allies, were sent to relieve that village. This 
party, on the march, taking counsel from its fears, was 
seized with a panic, and returned to Cholula without 
encountering any but imaginary enemies. Cortez, well 
understanding the unfavorable effect of such a retrograde 
movement upon the mind of the enemy, at once abandoned 
all other operations, and, hurrying to Cholula, assumed in 
person the command. This is one of the many occasions 
in which he displayed his superior capacity. On his 
appearance, the soldiers were at once reassured. The 
luadertaking on the point of failure, proved entirely suc- 
cessful without further difficulty ; and an important position 
was permanently assured. In this instance, Cortez has 
disfigured a really great achievement, by asserting that 
the auxiliary Indians amounted to one hundred thousand.* 
Thus, step by step, was the Conquistador advancing 
his influence, and securing, not only his communications, 
but an allied force for the contemplated operations in the 
great valley itself. Outside that the Aztecs had now no 
certain support, while the Spaniards, before entering upon 
their war of subjugation, possessed themselves of a sure 
native alliance. In these particulars, in this far reaching 
policy, and in the good faith with which he at all timcF 

* Folsom's Cortez, pasje 179. 
28 



434 SIZE or the brigantines. 



treated his Indian allies^ we have constantly to remark 
the greatness of Cortez. We owe it to his memory to say 
this, as we have not scrupled to expose his criminal acts, 
and his cruelty, in which he resembled the savage quite 
as much as in his system of war. 

We now return to those small, flat boats, which, in the 
bombastic language of the relators, were called brigantines. 
They were built in sections in Tlascala, more readily to be 
carried over the mountain, put together, and launched in 
the laguna of Tezcuco. In another place we have pointed 
out those physical peculiarities of the valley, which 
created a marsh instead of a lake, as the enclosure of the 
city ; a body of water so widely diffused in volume, as to 
be held at various levels by such slight barriers as grass, 
rushes, and Indian dikes presented ; permitting only a 
sluggish flow, scarcely a current, from the southern por- 
tion,* above the city, to that below its level, the Tezcuco, 
the north-eastern lagmia. It is impossible, therefore, it 
could ever have been navigated by that class of vessels 
known as brigantines.f Vessels such as Cortez undoubt- 
edly built, are still there, and still navigate the lagunas 
and canals outside the city ; and they could now, as then, 
be built also in- the mountains of Tlascala, and be thence 



* The waters of the two lagunas of f In order to sail in another man- 

the north are also higher than the ner, these flat boats required some 

Tezcuco — in fact the laguna of Zum- substitute for a keel. This substitute 

,pango is the highest waters of the was probably either a slip keel in 

valley. But neither the Zumpango, the centre of the scow, or a board, let 

nor the San Christobel, has any ordi- down on the lee-side when required 

nary outlet, and, of course, both are — a very common appendage to vessels 

salt, like Tezcuco. designed to navigate shallow water. 



DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED. 435 



transported, put together, and launched at Tezcuco. But 
it would be a wonderful achievement. How much more 
was it so in his day ? 

The time occupied in building, equipping, and trans- 
porting to^ their destination thirteen of these little vessels, 
was not unreasonably long, considering the disadvantages 
under which the workmen labored. Boards were to be 
made with the tools of a ship carpenter; forges to be 
built for the smiths, without baked bricks, tanned leather, 
or seasoned lumber. The preparation of oakum was not 
difficult, but the process of collecting pitch from the trees 
could not be hastened, while its manufacture was by boil- 
ing after the Indian fashion in bark kettles.* The pre- 
paration of sails and cordage, too, for each little craft, 
most vitally important, was a work of time ;-f- yet was it 
indispensable to confer upon them powers of locomotion 
superior to the Indian bark canoe, J that they might 
choose their own point of attack, and possess also the 
means of escape when assailed by a superior force. 

These labors must have sorely tried the patience of 
Cortez; and their successful termination is the most 
remarkable event in the early history of our continent. 

* The process by which the boiling ignorant when they tell us, that ket- 

of water is effected among the In- ties were brought from the sea in 

dians, is by placing it in water-tight which to boil the pitch, 

kettles of birch bark ; into which f The material was the fibre of the 

heated stones continue to be dropped maguey, known among us as manilla 

until the process is effected. To boil hemp. 

pitch, it would be necessary to place % Diaz sometimes mentions pi- 

a kettle of pitch inside one of water, rogues, as well as canoes. By the 

and the heated water would cause the former, I understand the ordinary 

pitch to boil. This is a process of vessel of birch-bark ; by the latter, 

which the historians were evidently one dug out of a large log. 



436 CORTEZ OBTAINS SUPPLIES. 



This achievement of civiHzed art in an enemies' country, 
and amidst a savage population, is almost miraculous, so 
great, indeed, that had Diaz here introduced his " blessed 
Virgin," industriously plying the handsaw or the adze, we 
might almost admit the necessity of that supernatural 
intervention. How strange is it that this most wonderful 
success should be obscured by such absurd fables ! But 
stranger still that the story of those impossible brigantines 
has not destroyed all credence in the rest of the history. 
The popular passion for the marvellous has made these 
very additions, which a well poised mind at once rejects, to 
constitute in truth the great attraction in all our histories 
of the Mexican Conquest. 

Before again setting his face towards the valley of 
Mexico, several incidents occurred to our hero, which in 
the narrative of the conquest deserve especial notice, from 
their influence on its final result. The first of these was 
the arrival of two more vessels from the unfortunate ex- 
pedition oi Francisco de Qaray to the Panuco river. Every 
assistance was rendered them in their distress, and none 
the less willingly as their misfortune was a great advantage 
to the Conquistador, who was thus enabled to supply many 
of his most urgent necessities. A large Spanish craft 
from the Canaries likewise entered the port of Vera Cruz 
with a cargo of military stores,* all of which were greedily 
purchased. This vessel furnished also thirteen additional 
soldiers and three horses to the little army. A more deli- 
cate afiair was at the same time consummated. Agents 
were sent to San Domingo to obtain, if possible, an 

* Diaz, vol. I., page 385. 



LAS CASAS CIRCUMVENTED. 437 



approval from the Hieronomite brothers of the conduct of 
the Spaniards, both in the affair with Narvaez and in the 
violation of the new ordinances. This was done more 
especially to shield Cortez from the invectives Las Casas 
was pouring forth against him, with his usual vehemence. 
In fact, that well-meaning enthusiast had already de- 
nounced him for many wrongs and cruelties perpetrated 
before leaving the Islands. A more secret mission was 
intrusted to the same agent, which was to contract an 
alliance, offensive and defensive, with the mortal enemies 
of that distinguished monk — the Franciscans. A league, 
that proved, when consummated, as serviceable to the 
interests of Cortez in Spain, as that of Tlascala had been 
to him in Mexico. 

The Conquistador thoroughly understood the relations 
of the respective parties. He knew that while the Pro- 
tector of the Indians was honored with that high-sounding- 
title, he really possessed no power whatever to redress 
their grievances. The emperor, though fully appreciating 
the motives of the man, prudently intrusted that impor- 
tant function to a board chosen from those religious gen- 
tlemen, the Hieronomites, of whose honorable character 
we have already spoken. Both court and people confided 
in the prudence and the sincerity of purpose which ap- 
peared to govern them. None dared trust Las Casas, 
whose zeal too constantly outran his judgment. Hence, 
to these worthy men, and not to him, were delegated the 
necessary powers over those abuses which, in the admin- 
istration of Spanish "West Indian affairs, had become mon- 
strous. Their prudence and moderation could not be 



438 ENSLAVING THE INDIANS. 



appreciated by zealots, but the excellence of the reforms 
they inaugurated has vindicated them to posterity. To 
these visitadores Cortez now appealed for his justification, 
backed by the influence of the powerful order of San 
Francisco. 

The council of reform, junta de visitadores, would cer- 
tainly have condemned him, notwithstanding that sup- 
port, had he not, in anticipation of such an event, pro- 
vided a still more effectual shield in that charge of rebel- 
lion and apostasy which he brought against the unfortu- 
nate Indians. To disregard this might have endangered 
the standing of the tribunal itself with the emperor. This 
subterfuge, as old as the times of Pontius Pilate, has ever 
proved efficacious under a jealous despotism. " If thou 
let this man go, thou art not Csesar's friend," retorted the 
Jews, when they had no other charge to allege against 
the Saviour. A similar accusation was equally success- 
ful in the courts of the German Caesar.* Apparently to 
lay a foundation for this charge, Cortez, at every village he 
visited, had required from the Indians an acknowledgment 
of vassalage to the King of Spain. Proceedings that must 
have appeared to the people but as a sort of merry-making. 
In the end, however, they found them to possess a tragic 
reality. But to return to the expedition, and the cam- 
paign against the Aztecs. 

All the country between the sea and the Mexican val- 
ley had now been subjugated. Of its people, those tribes 
whose alliance afforded no advantage to the invaders, were 

* Csesar was the title of the German emperors, so long as that office 
existed. 



FABULOUS NUMBER OF INDIANS. 439 



declared apostates from, the Romish superstition, to be 
eaters of human flesh, and were consigned to the most 
abject slavery. The useless men were given over to the 
Tlascalans ; the women, after branding and haptizing, were 
distributed among the soldiers, as appears from the state- 
ment of Diaz.* The mountain barrier of the valley being 
now in the possession of Cortez or his allies, on the third 
day after Christmas, 1520 — with the flotilla about half 
completed — he commenced his return march. With this 
the greatest act in the drama of the conquest begins, and 
every step we advance increases its interest. The suc- 
cessful passage of lofty mountains by Indian trails, blocked 
up and beset by an active enemy, would always be 
esteemed a great achievement; but if to this we add the 
carriage of a flotilla over these same wild paths, though 
disjointedly, and piece by piece, we chronicle a success 
about equal to that of their construction. 

This, however, within the reach of the possible, is yet 
so difficult of accomplishment, a modern general would 
hardly undertake it, even with the certainty thereby of 
completely turning the natural defences of the city, and 
laying its population at his mercy. As to the fifteen 
thousand Tlascalans, who Diazf says were employed to 
bring these brigantines to the lagunas, and the eight other 
thousand he assigns to the same duty in another page,J 
and still another eight thousand who accompanied them, 
and the two thousand that conveyed provisions, though 
all ridiculously fabulous, they are still moderate when 
compared with the greater exaggerations of Cortez and 

* Diaz, vol. I., page 367. f Diaz, vol. II., page 18. J Ibid., page 16. 



440 TEZCUCO THE POINT d'APPUI. 



Gomora. Eight thousand Tezcucans are said also to have 
been employed to clean out and enlarge one of the canals. 
From personal inspection, we declare that half as many 
hundreds would have been too numerous to work in so 
contracted a space. We are, besides, to consider the seri- 
ous burden these vast crowds must have proved to the 
limited commissariat of the army. 

Before the march a council was called to settle the 
point d'appui, or base of operations in the valley. Chalco 
had great advantages. It was not only the nearest point, 
but the most accessible from Tlascala ; and was besides 
the highest land in the southern valley. The water of 
the adjoining laguna, too, was fresh, and above the level 
of the city several feet. The Chalcans, likewise, were a 
conquered people, and at heart on the side of the invaders. 
To Tezcuco there were objections of a serious character. 
The peojDle of that village were of kin to the Mexicans, 
and could not but sympathize with them in their ex- 
tremity. But all these advantages and disadvantages 
were more than counterbalanced by the strategic benefits 
the last town afforded. Being on the salt, or lower ex- 
tremity of the marsh, there was a much greater space of 
open water and a wider field of action for the flotilla, 
when once launched. From thence, too, in the rainy 
season, the city could be reached by several avenues. By 
the way of the flats of San Lazarus, on the north they 
could attain the sadly memorable causeway of Tacuba, 
by passing through that of Guadulupe or Tepeac. Pur- 
suing a southerly direction, through ditches and shallow 
waters, the brigantines might reach the important dike 




^iTalmanalco 



SAILINa AROUND MEXICO. 



442 MUSTER OF FORCES. 



which joined the city to Mexicalzingo and Iztapalapa, and 
effectually succor troops advancing against those villages, 
in case the enemy should, as they afterwards did, cut 
through in their rear the connection with the eastern 
shore. If they took a westerly course, before reaching 
the first of those villages, and crossed the southern path- 
way near Ghuruhusco, they could approach almost to the 
rock of Chapultepec; thence turning to the right, they 
could advance northerly to the south side of the fatal 
route of the triste noclie, and continuing on through the 
opening in this causeway, they would sail again over the 
flats of San Lazarus, in returning to their quarters ; or 
they could, if desired, complete the circuit of the city. 
In a very wet season this could now be done, and certainly 
when the volume of water was greater than at present, 
without difficulty. For the many objects designed to be 
effected by the flotilla, Tezcuco, therefore, was clearly the 
most desirable point for the concentration of the forces, 
and was accordingly chosen. 

On the second day after Christmas, 1520, preparatory 
to the march, a muster was had of the forces. As Cortez 
had no motive to misstate its strength, the enumeration 
is probably correct. It is, also, consistent with itself and 
with former statements, and therefore are we bound to 
give it full credence. The numbers were forty horse and 
five hundred foot, eighty of whom were cross-bowmen 
and musketeers. There were also eight or nine field- 
pieces and a small quantity of powder, and, in addition, 
a body of Indian auxiliaries, not so numerous as to burden 
the commissariat, nor to impede the steadiness of the dis- 



MTJSTEE OF FORCES. 



443 



ciplined soldiers, yet sufficient to supply a valuable body 
for any duty in which irregulars could be advantageously 
employed. This must comprise all that were ever in the 
service. It is unnecessary, therefore, to discuss the impro- 
babilities which the daily encumbrance of the march by 
fabulous thousands of friendly Indians suggests. We 
have here then the exact effective force of the little band 
which so boldly ventured to re-enter the valley of Mexico, 
after all that had been previously suffered, or witnessed 
there of the sufferings of others, in the expedition of the 
previous year. It is not only a marked instance of daring, 
but the beginning of a series of adventures that are almost 
without a parallel. 




MARCH TO TEZCUCO. 



444 PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAIN. 



The next day, that of the Holy Innocents, the march 
actually began, and was continued for six leagues, to Gua- 
Jocingo* a town in the Tlascalan alhance.f The following 
morning, the 29th day of December, 1520, they left their 
friendly quarters and commenced the ascent of the moun- 
tain. Cortez, with ten horsemen and sixty foot, all lightly 
armedj and experienced in this kind of warfare, led the 
van.§ Four leagues up the weary ascent had been made, 
when they encamped for the night, upon the very crest 
of the ridge, ten thousand feet above the sea, the eastern 
boundary of Aztec territory. It was amid a tempest of 
driving snow, so fierce as to hide them from the ever 
watchful Mexican scouts, while they suffered intensely 
from the cold. The next morning, after enduring this 
memorable exposure, they made the descent unopposed 
and undiscovered, until the greatest difficulties of the 
route were passed. The path was broken up throughout 
its entire course. But all obstacles were readily sur- 
mounted, as no enemy was present to dispute the passage. 
At last watchfires blazed on every side. The braves 
were summoned to arms, and hostilities commenced ; too 

* Huaxocingo. but Indian war, in which iron plate 
f Folsom's Cortez, page 203. armor would not only be of no advan- 
J Ibid., page 204. tage, but would render the wearer 
§ We have already referred to a set almost unserviceable in that peculiar 
of plate armor suspended in the Mu- kind of hostility, known as Indian 
seum at Mexico. Like all the relics of war. Then, again, the heat of the 
the Conquest, it is at least apocryphal, climate would make such armor in- 
Iron defensive armor is only requi- supportable, 
site to defend the body from iron Like the copy of his picture, which 
weapons. has no original, and his banner, made 
Cortez was but nineteen years of since his death, this armor was pro- 
age when he came to the West Indies, bably purchased for effect. 
He had no knowledge of any war 



ENTRY INTO TEZCUCO. 445 



late, however, to effect any important result. At night, 
the last of the year 1520, the invaders encamped at a dis- 
tance of only three leagues from Tezcuco. 

The next day's march was delayed by a solemn embassy 
from that town, " bearing a golden mace j"* it solicited for 
the people and their chief the pardon and friendship of 
Spain. The real object, however, was to gain the time 
necessary for a general flight. But the prayer of the 
petitioners being instantly granted, and the march re- 
sumed, the invaders forthwith entered and took up their 
quarters there. Cortez was for awhile at a loss to define 
the object of the Tezcucans in extending so friendly a 
reception. But a party of soldiers ascending an elevated 
mound to reconnoitre, he learned that those who had 
failed to make good their retreat to the island-capital, 
were now flying with their valuables in every direction. 
Diaz unfortunately adds, " Many took shelter in the reeds 
growing in the [salt !] lake !"-}• But the designed evacua- 
tion of the town and entire shore of the mainland was 
frustrated by the rapid movements of the invaders. 

On the first day of the year 1521, Cortez entered 
Tezcuco, and on that very night its sachem, with his 
principal men, fled to Mexico. The bulk of the popula- 
tion, unable to cross the laguna, took refuge in the 
mountains. Eor the three first days of its occupation, the 
place presented the appearance of a deserted town ; and 
so little prospect was there of any hearty alliance with its 
people, that eight more were industriously employed in 
putting it in a state of defence. During this while the 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 207. f Lockhart's Diaz, vol. II., page 5 



446 IZTAPALAPA. 



inhabitants of the adjacent hamlets sent delegates to offer 
their submission, and many of the townspeople were like- 
wise induced to accept protection. Foraging parties were 
at the same time diligently engaged in collecting what- 
ever supplies might be found on the narrow margin of 
fertile land, between the mountains and the laguna, con- 
stituting the territory of that town.* 

The next movement of importance, after thoroughly 
establishing the army at Tezcuco, was against Iztapalaj>a, 
a small isolated grain-producing district, within the ever- 
glade barrier of the city. The expedition was led by 
Cortez in person, and it fully demonstrated the strength 
of the natural defences of the valley ; while the assail- 
ants, inferior upon the water, had to make head against 
defenders who possessed means of traversing both it and 
the neighboring marshes at their will. The affair ended 
in a disastrous night retreat; less serious indeed than 
the triste noche, but sufficiently so to prove the necessity 
of the jSotilla, to insure success. 

Iztapalapa, according to the American topographical 
survey, is over four feet higher than the Grand Plaza, 
the highest part of the city of Mexico ; which city is 
again six and a half feet above the laguna of Tezcuco.f 

* " Cortez speaks of the fine fields and barrenness of the plain on the 

of corn on the east side of this laguna. opposite side, which is so slightly ele- 

They could not have been finer in his vated above the level of the salt water 

day than they are at present, though that a few inches of rise in the laguna 

they furnished him with the supplies spreads out an immense sheet." — 

that supported his army. This splen- Mexico and its Religion. 

did farming-land, though but a nar- f See Report of the Reconnoissance 

row margin extending from the shore of the Valley of Mexico, by Lieut. M. 

to the foot of the mountain, was strik- L. Smith, TJ, S. A. 
ingly in contrast with the flatness 




Talmanalco 



BtARCH OF CORTEZ FR05r TEZCTJCO TO IZTAPALAPA. 



448 IZTAPALAPA. 



In order, therefore, to elevate that salt lake to the level 
of Iztapalapa, as alleged by the writer of " Bernal Diaz," 
and all subsequent historians, it would be necessary to 
submerge not only the quarters of Cortez, at Tezcuco, to 
the depth of more than eleven feet ; but to flood the city 
of Mexico itself also with at least four ! Diaz, entirely 
unacquainted with the facts, confounds dikes with cause- 
ways ; because Cortez sometimes uses the word dike for 
causeway, and sometimes treats them as synonymous,* 
as in the present instance. They are, however, entirely 
distinct ; the dike is to impede a current, while the 
causeway is so constructed as not to interfere with the 
natural channel. 

The inhabitants of Iztapalapa fled at the approach of 
the Spaniards, and took refuge in some neighboring vil- 
lages — in the fresh-water laguna, probably Xocldmilco, as 
they had timely notice of their approach. Nor is it im- 
possible that the " waters of the salt lake began to flow 
with great impetuosity towards the fresh lake,"-|- through 
the opening made in the causeway "two-thirds of a 
league" in his rear; that is, from a lower to a higher 
level — an apparent impossibility, which, however, fre- 
quently occurs even in our day, when a strong north 
wind drives the water before it. The absurdities into 
which the historians of the Conquest have fallen, by 
misconceiving this statement, probably originated with 
Gomora, and were pointed out doubtless by Las Casas, or 
some other author, now suppressed. Diaz undertakes to 
turn the edge of the criticism by pretending, that in his 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 213. f Ibid., page 213. 



DEATH OF CUETRAVAC. 449 



time, the physique of the country had entirely changed ;* 
modestly insinuating, as its cause, an earthquake that 
never occurred. Cortez probably discovered, while his 
men were busily engaged plundering the village, that the 
enemy were equally so in destroying the causeway in his 
rear, and that they were aided in their work by a power- 
ful north wind. Whereupon he hastily fled, and by 
'■''lialf running and half flying " escaped to the main- 
land by anothei night retreat. As for the ten thousand 
families, or fifty thousand inhabitants of Iztapalapa, the 
necessary rule of discount furnished by Diaz applied here, 
will afford the probable number. " Write one, where he 
says eighty." 

The Cuetravacinf of Cortez, the CuitlahuatzinJ of Diaz, 
a brother of Montezuma, was that sachem of Iztapalapa 
whose duty it had been to w^elcome the Spaniards on 
their first arrival. On the death of that unfortunate 
emperor, he became the leader of the confederates, and 
whether besieging the Spaniards in Mexico, or following 
them in their sorrowful retreat, he had shown himself 
worthy to fill the place of his illustrious predecessor. But 
the small-pox soon made him its victim in the midst of 
his career. He had been called to the administration in 

* " Iztapalapa was at that time a scarcely believe that waves had ever 

town of considerable magnitude, built rolled over the spot where now fertile 

half in the water and half on dry land, corn-plantations extend themselves 

The spot where it stood is at present to all sides, so wonderfully have all 

all dry land ; and where vessels once things changed here in a short space 

sailed up and down, seeds are sown of time." — Bernal Diaz, vol. I., page 

and harvests gathered. In fact, the 220. 

whole face of the country is so com- f Folsom's Cortez, page 186. 

pletely changed, that he who had not J Lockhakt's Dias, vol. I., page 

seen these parts previously would 344. 
29 



450 CORTEZ' STATEMENT POSSIBLE. 



a time of great calamity, his vigorous measures, before 
his untimely death, had apparently restored affairs to their 
former prestige. A powerful enemy who was in his very 
capital when he assumed the government, had not only 
been driven out with immense loss, but had been forced 
to fly beyond the limits of his hereditary states. If that 
enemy again returned, it was not until after Cuetravacin's 
death. That Cortez returned at all, was doubtless because 
he dared not go back to his own country unsuccessful. An 
ignominious punishment, or a conquest, were the alterna- 
tives that seemed to have forced uj)on him the necessity 
of renewing the war. That Divine ruler, too, who sent 
the hornet before the children of Israel, for wise purposes 
of his own, permitted the small-pox to pave the way for 
the Spaniards to re-enter. The future, however, was 
unknown to the dying Cuetravacin. He beheld only the 
magnitude of his victory over the fated enemy of his race ; 
and stoically wrapping himself in his feathered mantle, as 
his eyes closed in death, he rejoiced at his expected welcome 
to the celestial hunting-grounds, and felt that he was 
worthy a name among the immortal braves. Thus he died. 
There is no difficulty in reconciling with truth that 
portion of the narrative of Cortez which declares the 
enemy opened the dike or causeway two miles in his 
rear, and that the water flowed with impetuosity from 
the salt into the fresh laguna, as we have already sug- 
gested ; for the water, close to the eastern shore, is both 
deep and salt, and we have witnessed the same pheno- 
mena there, at the same season of the year, when the 
north wind blew furiously. If the waters ceased their flow 



DON FERNANDO. 451 



the next morning, it was not the result of an equilibrium, 
as Cortez supposes, but because the wind had moderated. 
The flood, too, on the day of the attack, may have filled 
the causeway ditches to overflowing even as far as Iztapa- 
lapa ; and hence, with the usual exaggeration, it became, 
in the despatches, a town in the water. The number of 
Indian auxiliaries in this expedition, too, were as usual 
counted by thousands, instead of hundreds; with these 
qualifications we admit the correctness of the narrative. 

Returning to Tezcuco, after the night retreat from 
Iztapalapa, the submission of Otumba and other villages 
and hamlets in that vicinity, was received. About the 
same time, also, Sandoval and an expeditionary party 
were sent to open a communication with Tlascala. There 
was a second object to be gained by this, Cortez proposing 
to provide the people of Tezcuco with a sachem on whom 
he might rely. While in Tlascala, a scion of the reigning 
family of Tezcuco had lived with him, who was now about 
eighteen years old, and had been carefully educated in the 
Komish superstition, and baptized under the name of Don 
Fernando. This youth, on his arrival at Tezcuco, was 
installed as its cacique. This is the famous Don Fernando 
who played so conspicuous a part afterwards in the siege 
of Mexico, and was the founder of that noble family 
which, for many generations, furnished the rulers of Tez- 
cuco, and who, under a royal commissioner, were its here- 
ditary lords. It is pleasant to notice kindly traits in the 
Conquistador. They were few, but they did exist. Of 
them the brightest instance is his ardent friendship for 
this Indian chief, which terminated only at his death. 



452 TOPOGRAPHICAL VIEW. 



According to a provision in his last testament, the remains 
of Cortez, as ah^eady noticed, were brought from Spain, 
and deposited by the side of those of his bronze-visaged 
friend. A little chapel and a rough-stone wall mark the 
spot where the two once lay side by side. We have ne\ er 
hesitated to condemn the wrongs that were committed by 
Cortez in his lifetime. Yet, looking upon these memo- 
rials of his friendship for one of another race, we can 
hardly resist the conclusion that, had he been brought up 
under other circumstances, he might have been not only 
the great man he was, but a good man also, which is a 
thousand-fold more desirable. 



A TOPOGRAPHICAL VIEW OP THE VALLEY OF MEXICO. 

A great deal of poetry and very little prose has been written about the 
valley of Mexico. From the heights of Rio Frio ; from the summit above the 
Cross of the Marquis ; and from the highest peak of the Tepeac behind Guada- 
lupe, I saw a tropical morning sun disengage itself from the snowy mountains. 
From these three favored spots I have looked upon the valley, where dry 
land and pools of water seemed equally to compose the magnificent pano- 
rama. Immense mirrors, of every conceivable shape and form, were reflect- 
ing back the rays of the sun ; while the green shores, in which the fresh- 
water ones were set, enhanced the effect. The white walls, and domes, and 
spires of the distant city heightened still more a picture that can only be 
fully appreciated by those who have looked downward through its pure 
atmosphere from such a position ; but when I descended to the common 
level, the charm was broken. Instead of lakelets and crystal springs, I found 
only pools of surface-water, which the rains had left ; and the canals were 
but the ditches from which, on either side, the dirt had been taken to build 
the causeway through the marsh, and were now covered with a coat of green. 
The valley has no outlet ; and as evaporation only takes up pure water, all 
the animal, vegetable, and mineral matter that is carried in, is left to stag- 
nate and putrefy in the ponds and ditches. 

A practical "man of the times," with more sense than poetry in his com- 



TOPOGRAPHICAL VIEW. 453 



position, must grieve as he looks at the great advantages here possessed for 
irrigation which are unimproved. There is not a spot in the whole valley 
that is not capable of the most perfect drainage,* while basins have been 
formed by nature in the highest points, from which water could be supplied 
to the whole valley ; but decay and neglect — fitting types of the social con- 
dition of the people — everywhere exhibit themselves. Water stands in all 
the narrow sewers, or ditches, that occupy the middle of the streets, for the 
want of a suitable one to draw it down to the level of the Tezcuco. Once a 
year the flags are taken from the covered ditches, and the mud dipped out ; 
and a bundle of hay, tied to the tail of a dirt-cart, is daily dragged through 
the open ones. 

I have spoken only of the lower division of the valley — that in which the 
city stands. If we consider the two partly separated as one, the whole con- 
stitutes an oval basin seventy-five miles long from north to south, with an 
average width from east to west of twenty. Two-thirds of the southern, how- 
ever, is a marsh; and might well be called the "Montezuma," it so strikingly 
resembles the one of that name in the state of New York, though the whole 
body of pond and morass contains much less water than its northern name- 
same. The stage-road from Vera Cruz crosses this marsh for fourteen miles, 
and has a great number of small stone bridges, beneath which the water runs 
with considerable current towards the north, on account of the difference of 
level between the southern fresh-water ponds and the lower salt-water ponds, 
as in the days of Cortez. There are occasional dry spots, and now and then 
there is open water ; but the greater portion is filled with marsh grass, and 
furnishes good feeding for the droves of cattle that daily frequent it for that 
purpose. The ancient village of Mexicalzingo, or " Little Mexico" — the 
traditional home of the Aztecs before they built Mexico — is situated on one 
of the dry portions, slightly elevated above the level of the fresh water, and 
a short distance from it Iztapalapa, and on another, six miles distant, stands 
the famous city of Mexico itself, resting on piles driven into a foundation of 
soft earth. The canal of Chalco commences at the northerly extremity of the 
Xochimilco, and, passing by Mexicalzingo and the "floating gardens," viz., 
artificial islands, continues along the eastern front, and empties itself into 
the salt [teqiiisquita] pond of Tezcuco, having received as a tributary the 
canal of Tacubaya, which passes along the southern boundary of the city, 
and the main trunk sewer. 

The highest water of the southern portion of the valley, is the pond of 

* Re-port o/"M. L. Smith, Lieutenarit of Topographical Engineers, U. S. A. 



454 TOPOGRAPHICAL VIEW. 



Chalco in the extreme south-east, being 4-8 feet above the level of the Grand 
Plaza of the city, and twenty miles distant therefrom, and lly2_ feet above 
Tezcuco ;* but its volume being small, for the last four hundred years, the 
slight impediments of long grass and a few Indian dikes have prevented 
any injury to the city by a too rapid flow to the northward. Xochimilco is 
the pond, or open space in the marsh, that extends from the Chalco to near 
Mexicalzingo on the same level. Tezcuco is the lowest water in the valley, 
being 6J feet below the Grand Plaza of the city.f It receives the surplus of 
the waters that have not already been evaporated in the other ponds. At 
this great elevation, 7500 feet, evaporation does its work rapidly all over the 
valley; but it is in Tezcuco that the residuum of the waters is deposited. 
And as this water evaporates 8 per cent, faster than fresh, the greatest portion 
of the evaporation here takes place. 

It may be well to repeat that, strictly speaking, there are two valleys 
— the upper or northern, and the valley of the city of Mexico; the first extends 
in an oval form beyond the hills of Tepeac, some sixty miles to Pachuca, and 
communicates with the plains of Otumba and Apam on the east. In this 
valley are the ponds or lagunas of Zumpango (the highest waters of Mexico), 
and Joltoca or San Cristobal ; and in it is also the town and half of the laguna 
Tezcuco, which is the lowest laguna of the valley. North of these lagunas is 
a country of fine farming lands, which was probably inhabited long before 
the time of the arrival of the Aztecs. 

The valley of the city of Mexico lies to the south of these hills, and is also 
oval in shape ; but not more than twenty miles in extent. The surface-water 
with which it is saturated, is in part fresh, and in other parts tequisquiia — 
that is, where the waters have a current, they are fresh ; but where they 
remain from year to year, discharging their volume only by evaporation, 
there they become infused with saline properties, and all about them is 
marked with barrenness. If the process of evaporation was less intense 
than it is, all vegetation would die from the extreme humidity of the soil — as 
the gardener's phrase is, it would rot. Even in the city itself, a couple of feet 
of digging brings you to the water-level even in the dry season ; and seventy 
or eighty yards of boring does not carry you beyond the perceptible influence 
of tequisquita.X This law of evaporation puzzled the Aztecs, who, ignorant of 
all philosophical principles, could only account for the disappearance of the 

* Lieut. Smith's Report. process of boring, at that depth, gave 

t Ibid. clear indications of the presence of te- 

% Near the author's lodgings in the quisquita. 
city of Mexico, an artesian well, in 



TOPOGRAPHICAL VIEW. 455 



immense mass of water that fell in the valley, upon the hypothesis, that the 
Tezcuco had a leaky bottom, or that there was a liole in the lake — an idea 
that thousands in Mexico credit even at the present day. This was the 
origin of that absurd story which Cortez repeats in his despatches, that this 
lake communicated with the sea, and had its daily tides, because, perhaps, 
he saw the water driven by the north wind at the time he wrote. 

The volume of water in this valley in the time of Cortez, could not have 
been much greater than at present, if the accumulations of each year were 
to be carried off by evaporation alone. As this is the turning-point in 
the history or fable of the Conquest, I must adduce the proofs and arguments 
that are at hand to establish this statement. That the level could not have 
been higher, is clear from the fact that neither Mexico, Mexicalzingo, nor Izta- 
palapa could in that case have been inhabited ; and much less Tezcuco, 
which is 6^ feet lower than Mexico. 

Cortez' account of deep waters has often been made plausible by adding 
the hypothesis that the accumulating mud of centuries has filled up the 
lakes that then existed, and which have thus become ponds. But this by no 
means removes the difficulty ; for then, as now, the waters of the southern 
laguna flowed into Tezcuco, conveying with them the infinitesimal infusion 
of tequisquita that had instilled itself into the Chalco. Had the volume of 
Chalco and Xochimilco been increased several feet, then the slight Indian 
barriers and the long grass would no longer have been able to retard the 
progress of the water till evaporation had diminished its quantity, but, pre- 
cipitating itself in a mass into the Tezcuco, it would have overwhelmed the 
town of Tezcuco, the city of Mexico, and all their shores, and established an 
equilibrium of surface in the two. 

All the lagunas, canals, and ditches that have been described, are navi- 
gated by small scows that draw but a few inches of water — the medium of 
an extensive internal commerce. Through the lagunas and canal of Chalco 
come from Cuatla the supplies of the products of the hot country for the 
city and surrounding region. This commerce exceeds the whole foreign 
trade of the republic* The style of boats now used was probably introduced 
by Cortez, and in this convenient form his thirteen brigantines were doubtless 
made ; for, had his brigantines been of a larger draught of water, they could 
not have navigated canals intended only for Indian canoes. One of these 
vessels, when supplied with a sail, a cannon, and a movable keel or side- 
board, would be a formidable auxiliary in an assault upon the city at the 

* Com6rcio de Mexico, 1852. 



456 TOPOGRAPHICAL VIEW. 



present day. And if one such scow was placed in the ditch on each side of 
the southern causeway, as Cortez alleges he did, it would enable an assailing 
enemy to present just so much more front as the additional width of two boats 
would give him, and also to rake both the ditch and causeway. 

Authors have expressed their surprise at the existence of two navigable 
canals to each causeway, one on either side, as an immense expenditure of 
unnecessary labor. The explanation of this is found in the fact, that in the 
construction of a pathway (for Cortez says that it was but two spears' length 
in width) through wet and marshy ground, a broad ditch is ordinarily made 
on either side to obtain earth for the embankment, and to keep the water- 
level permanently below the top of the pathway. So it is, and so it must 
always have been at Mexico, in order to keep these footpaths in travelling con- 
dition. In the dry season, which is the winter, these broad ditches are covered 
with floating islands of green " scum ;" but in the rainy season, which is the 
summer, they may be navigated by the shallow Mexican scows. A path- 
way of earth thirty feet (perhaps only twelve) in width could not endure the 
winds and waves of a navigable lake, or the wear and " swash" of a canal 
twelve feet deep on either side ; and the fact that Cortez navigated the 
ditches in the rainy season, establishes the insignificant size of his famous 
brigantines. 

As the level of the surface of the land and the surface of the water at 
Mexicalzingo, at Mexico, and at Tezcuco, does not materially vary now from 
what it was in the time of Cortez, if we can take for data the foundations of 
the churches built by the Conquistador at these several places, we shall have 
to look to another quarter for a supply of water for the city canals, which 
were sufficiently capacious for canoe navigation. This supply we readily 
obtain by allowing the waters of the canals of Tacubaya and Chalco to pass 
through the streets of the city in ditches sufficiently large for canoes, instead 
of passing along the south and east fronts outside. By this hypothesis we 
obtain a current, a prerequisite to the very idea of a canal, particularly in 
the streets of a city. 

The savans of Europe have shown their profound ignorance of the first 
principles of navigation, in taking it for granted that the canals of Mexico 
were filled with stagnant water, that had "set back" from the stagnant 
pond of Tezcuco ; and that the level of the pond must at all times have 
been so high as to fill the canals — thus keeping the city in constant danger 
from any sudden rise in the laguna. But, aside from the rules of canal con- 
struction, there is an important sanitary question involved. The present 
ditches in the middle of the streets, though they have a perceptible current, 



TOPOGRAPHICAL VIEW. 457 



and a slight infusion of tequisquita, are an intolerable nuisance, and have a 
deleterious effect upon the public health. How much more so must they 
have been vrhen, from the uncleanly habits of the Indians, they vi^ere the 
common receptacle of all kinds of filth, and were constantly stirred up to 
their very bottoms by the setting-poles of the navigators ? The system of 
canalling is a system of slack- water navigation, but abhors stagnation. 

We come next to the question of the dimensions of these street canals. We 
know that they were intended only for the navigation of Indian canoes ; that 
such of them as intersected the causeway of the night retreat, Cortez crossed 
with his army all but one, either by leaping or climbing down into them, 
wading across, and then climbing up on the other side while loaded with 
their armor, while fighting against a superior force of the Aztecs ; and that 
Alvarado actually leaped across the main one of the openings, shows conclu- 
sively that the canals could not have had any great breadth. On the hypo- 
thesis that Cortez used scows that drew no more water than the scows of the 
present day, his story becomes credible, so far, at least, as the possibility of 
making the circuit of the city in his boats in a season of rains. 

The waters of the valley are now distributed in the best possible manner 
to favor evaporation ; and yet so completely is this power taxed, that when, 
in 1629, a water-spout, bursting over the small river Guautitlan, had forced 
the waters of Zumpango over its barriers into the Joltoca or San Cristobal, 
and that again into the Tezcuco, the city was inundated to the depth of about 
three feet. Evaporation was unable to remove or materially lessen this new 
volume of water in a period of five years. This fully demonstrates that the 
average annual fall of water is equal to the full capacity of evaporation. The 
valley of Mexico is a very small one over which to dispose of the mass of 
water that the mountain-torrents and the tropical rains pour into it, and with 
the small margin of six and a half feet for rising and falling, the city must 
have been in constant jeopardy. Still the floods have not been frequent, fully 
demonstrating the great uniformity in the fall of water in the rainy season. 
When a water-spout occurred in the Chalco in 1446, in the time of the Aztec 
kings, there was a flood, which probably ran off into the Tezcuco. Under 
the Spaniards the following floods are enumerated : the first in 1553 ; the 
second in 1580 ; . the third in 1604 ; the fourth in 1607 ; the fifth in 1629. 

After the flood of 1607, the tunnel of Huehuetoca was undertaken, and 
constructed in eleven months, for the purpose of letting out of the valley the 
waters of the river Guautitlan, so as to prevent it from falling into Tezcuco, 
or flooding the city. For those times it was a great work ; but we should 
say now that it was poorly engineered and badly managed, and not worthy 



458 TOPOGRAPHICAL YIEW. 



the notice it has received in books on Mexico. Since that time, the great 
inundation of 1629 occurred while the mouth of the tunnel was closed. After 
that time, the Spaniards, instead of building inside of the tunnel an elliptical 
tube, actually, by a hundred years of misapplied labor, turned the tunnel 
into an open cut. 

Cortez furnished a map to illustrate his description. This map has the 
same defect as his narrative ; that is, it was incorrect at the time he made it. 
The dimensions of the lagunas are exaggerated to an impossible size. Now, 
if we carry the village of Tezcuco and the shore of the lake with it to its 
correct position, we shall have the laguna of Tezcuco in its nresent form 
and size. 

In this survey of the ponds of Mexico, I have drawn upon the information 
on the subject acquired at the extensive salt manufactories of Syracuse 
and the surrounding villages in Western New York ; and also from the 
experience of our engineers upon the Erie Canal, and the engineers upon 
the dikes or levees at Sacramento, where the nature of the soil resembles 
that of Mexico. And I may now conclude this long survey of the canals and 
lagunas of Mexico, by saying that it is a wise provision of Providence that 
all bodies of water that have no outlet are found to contain a considerable 
infusion of salt, otherwise their accumulations of decaying matter would be 
such that mankind could not live in their vicinity. This valley is an illus- 
tration of that truth. The Tezcuco, surrounded by barrenness, is not dele- 
terious to life ; while the fresh-water lagunas, though continually changing 
their volume, render Mexico unhealthy in summer by the gases which they 
exhale from decaying vegetation. 

I have pretty thoroughly described this small valley ; and have also stated 
how large a portion of it is flooded with surface-water, and how large a 
portion of this water is infused with salt. In the vicinity of Tacubaya it is 
remarkably fertile, and there is good tillable land as the mountains are 
approached, especially about Chalco on the south-east ; but under Indian 
cultivation, the whole of this area could have produced sustenance for only 
an extremely limited population, if the product of the "foaiing gardens" 
and the birds upon the pond should be added. It is totally inadequate to 
feed the population of Mexico under the vice-kings, 400,000, or its present 
population of say 300,000 ; nor could the valley itself be made to sustain 
one-third of this. The valley, it must be recollected, is enclosed on all sides 
by mountains that exceed 10,000 feet above the sea level ; while the com- 
missariat capacity of barbaric tribes is not such as to procure extensive 
supplies from a distance. Under such circumstances, we should look for an 



TOPOGRAPniCAL VIEW. 459 



extremely limited population. Yet the most surprising part of the story 
of the Conquest, is the enormous numbers assigned to the many large 
cities which it is alleged the valley contained. Diaz says, " A series of large 
towns stretched themselves along the banks of the lake, out of which [the 
lake] still larger ones rose magnificently above the water." Cortez says 
that Iztapalapa contained " 10,000 families," which would give the town 
50,000 inhabitants ; " Amaqueruca, 20,000 inhabitants ;" " Mexicalzingo, 
3000 families," or 15,000 inhabitants ; " Ayciaca, more than 6000 families ;" 
" Huchilohuchico, 5000 or 6000." The population of Chalco he does not 
give, nor the population of very many villages whose names he men- 
tions. At the present day, there are a few mud-huts in nearly every locality 
named; but not enough in any one instance to merit the name of vil- 
lage. And this, I am inclined to believe, was the real condition of things 
in the time of Cortez. The city of Mexico alone would have exhausted the 
limited resources of the valley. Old Thomas Gage was as much puzzled 
two hundred years ago to account for this astonishing disappearance of the 
numerous Indian cities of this valley, as we are ; and also for the supposed fill- 
ing up of the lakes — never appearing to suspect that the story was a fiction. 

THE CAUSEWAYS. 

Now as we are on the new causeway, broad and spacious like all the 
others, it may be well to conclude the discussion of the physical condition of 
this valley by determining the size of the old Aztec ones. 

An island, embosomed in a marsh, has always formed a favorite retreat 
for an Indian tribe — whether among the everglades of Florida, or the wild- 
rice swamps of Northwestern Canada. Such a retreat is still more desirable 
when, in addition to the security it afibrds from an enemy, it is likewise a 
resort for wild-ducks, as was and is the case with the lagunas of the Mexican 
valley. Hence, probably, the Aztecs selected this place as the site of their 
village ; and to reach it, it was necessary to make one or more footpaths 
across the marsh. As the Aztecs had no beasts of burden, this must have 
been a task of no little magnitude. To have made it thirty feet wide would 
not only have been a work of immense diflBculty, but would have destroyed 
the defensive character of their position. Still, we can, upon this occasion, 
afford to be a little liberal with the statements of Cortez, as we have had to 
cut his hundreds of thousands of warriors down to a few thousand of misera- 
bly-armed Indians, and reduce his magnificent cities to Indian villages. 
In order to make the island of Mexico at all inhabitable, we have had to re- 



460 LIEUTENANT SMITH. 



duce his lakes from navigable basins of twelve feet or more in depth, to mere 
evaporating ponds. His floating islands have been transformed into garden- 
beds, built upon the mud ; and his canals have sunk to mere ditches. Now 
let us deal liberally with the old Conquistador in the matter of his cause- 
ways, and admit that they might have been twelve feet in width — as broad 
as the tow-path of the Erie Canal. — Wilson's Mexico and its Religion. 

THE VOLUME OF WATER THE SAME NOW AS IN THE TIME OF CORTEZ. 

Some persons, ignorant of nature's methods of sustaining equilibriums, 
have hastily adopted the hypothesis; that the volume of water in the valley 
of Mexico has so diminished since the time of Cortez, as to convert his 
alleged lakes into the ponds or lagunas of the present time. Where the 
discharge depends upon drainage, the enlargement or contraction of the 
drain must diminish or increase the volume of the reservoir. But when we 
come to those unchangeable laws, that hold evaporation and precipitation in 
equilibrium, we know that bodies of water dependent on these powers for 
their supply and discharge have not increased or diminished their volume 
since the last chain of mountains to their windward acquired their present 
form and shape, (See Lieut. Maury's Physical Geography, § 377) — that is, 
the volume of water in the valley of Mexico is to-day precisely what it was 
in the times of Cortez, and perhaps a thousand years before — the Zumpango 
alone, except in time of flood, evaporating all the water that now escapes by 
the canal of Huehuetoca — the little river Guautitlan. 

LIEUT. H. L. SMITH, U. S. A. 

The author knows nothing more in relation to the survey made by this 
officer, than is contained in a pamphlet defence of Francesco Suarez Iriarte 
published at the city of Mexico, by R. Rafael, 1853, in which a Spanish 
translation of this important report is introduced as one of the Appendices. 

He obtained it at the palace, of M. M. Lerdo, then first official in the 
department of public work [Fomento) now mixed up in revolutionary move- 
ments, and the author of the law Lerdo, in relation to church property. 



CHAPTEE XIII. 

THE SIEGE OF MEXICO. 

The youthful Emperor Guataraozin, 461 — Effect of the appearance of the 
" brigantines," 462 — Guatamozin's line of defence — his heroism, 463 — 
Transporting the " brigantines" to Tezcuco, 464 — Cortez makes a recon- 
noissance in force, 465 — Incidents of the march, 466 — More topographical 
blunders of Diaz, 467 — Sandoval's expedition to Chalco, 468 — More woman- 
branding — arrival of a Papal bull, 469 — Their sins pardoned by virtue of 
the bull, 469 — Cortez' expedition south of the lagunas, 470 — Cortez en- 
gages the mountain tribes, 472 — The beauty of the gardens of Guastipeque, 
472 — The capture of Cuernavaca, 473 — Capture of Xochimilco, 474 — The 
second day at Xochimilco, 475 — The second reconnoissance to Tacuba, 476 
— The character of this reconnoissance, 476 — The canal built by Cortez, 477 
— A fabulous depth given to his canal, 478 — Adventurers attracted by the 
first despatch, 478 — A muster and division offerees for the siege, 479 — The 
land forces placed in position, 480 — By means of his brigantines Cortez 
captures the Pinon, 480 — The first battle on the water, 482 — The first 
week of the siege, 483 — A complete investment effected, 484 — Its results, 
485 — The Chinampas, improperly called Floating Gardens, 485. 

GuATAMOZiN was the successor of Cuetravacin, the 
second from Montezuma, and last emperor of Mexico. 
His name is inseparably linked with the destruction of 
the Aztec empire and the ruin of its people. Called to 
the supreme command of a nation already doomed, his 
fate has thrown around its misfortunes the halo of his own 
self-devotion. The long-sustained supremacy of his peo- 
ple rested upon the impregnable position of their mud- 
girt islands, and the ample supply of food which their 
fast-anchored gardens furnished — the floating gardens of 

(461) 



462 EFFECT OF THE BRIGANTINES. 



the Spanish romancers, and our own historians — and the 
corn fields of Iztapalapa. Heretofore it had been optional, 
either to engage in aggressive war, or to practise at home 
the arts of peace. None had been able to disturb them 
in their secure retreat. Even the last assault of the 
Spaniards but proved its security. But that enemy now 
appeared with two auxiliaries, as strange to the Indians 
as were the pale faces ; one, the small-pox, left behind in 
their retreat, was already in the field; the other, the 
flotilla, preparing in the mountains of Tlascala, was yet 
to come. 

Under these circumstances, Guatamozin, a youth of 
eighteen,* came to the leadership of the confederacy. He 
had at best but inadequate means of defence against the 
returning enemy and his fearful allies. If the youthful 
emperor had relied confidently upon his command of the 
water-approaches to his capital, when he saw the strange 
" canoes" launched upon the Tezcucan laguna, that hope 
must have passed away. So light were they in draught, 
they could follow even his bark-built vessels in the shal- 
lowest water, yet so large they still contained twenty men 
and a cannon,-]- Stranger yet, driven by the wind, they 
moved with a speed that made them a terror to his most 
expert oarsmen. J When this new auxiliary entered the 
contest, the chief comprehended at once the fate that 
awaited both him and his people. No longer was he 
master of the time, and point of attack or retreat, that 
powder was now transferred to the enemy. His ditches were 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 315. f Ibid., page 267. 

X The bark-canoe is propelled by one or more paddles — not oars. 



guatamozin's plan of defence. 463 



no more a pathway to the flanks of his assailants, they 
were the road to his own. These " strange canoes" com- 
manded all his defences, and equally covered the advance 
or retreat of his enemy. The advantage of the cause- 
ways belonging to the master of the water, the peculiarity 
of his position no longer aided him in his defence. Day 
by day he saw the Spaniards approaching by these hitherto 
unassailable paths, until they deployed in his capital. 
They came and they went, morning and evening, under 
the protection of their boats, with the regularity of daily 
laborers. The very gardens upon the water, those artifi- 
cial islands which until now had ever been a certain 
source of supply to his city, were in the power of its 
enemy, and furnished his commissariat abundantly; and 
while his own people were perishing from hunger, the 
fields of Iztapalapa supplied their foes with forage. Such 
were the circumstances under which Guatamozin was to 
make his final stand. 

There was no hope of ultimate success. The utmost 
the youthful emperor could expect was to protract the 
siege, and make the victory as dear as possible to the be- 
siegers. To this end the whole system of Indian tactics 
was abandoned. Either his people must yield unresist- 
ingly at once, or daily struggle, hand to hand, uncovered, 
against an enemy armed with iron weapons. Either they 
must succumb now, or expose their bodies to the bullets 
of the arquebus and the fire of the artillery, with the 
additional risk of being trampled into the earth by those 
to them strange beasts, the horses. Yet this last was the 
choice our youthful hero adopted, and successfully con- 



464 GUATAMOZIN MISREPRESENTED. 



tinued, as long as there was a city to defend, and warriors 
to maintain the contest. When no firm land remained to 
him, his canoe became his palace, and there, in the midst 
of the shallow waters adjoining his capital, beyond the 
reach of the horses, surrounded by a few famishing survi- 
vors, with Indian stoicism he awaited the stroke of some 
lucky missile to terminate his misery. This was the 
defence resolved upon in the councils of Guatamozin — 
the most remarkable ever adopted by undisciplined 
warriors — a resolve we must characterize as fortitude 
rather than courage. The Aztecs could easilv have aban- 
doned their capital, when they discovered it was no longer 
defensible, and sought safety by dispersing themselves 
among their allies in the adjoining mountains and distant 
forests towards Otumba. But they chose rather to die 
among the houses and by the graves of their ancestors, 
that they might be counted worthy of their lineage, 
when they should meet hereafter the immortal braves 
who had gone before them. Thus it was a part of the 
original purpose of his tribe to die where they were, if 
necessary, rather than fly before the pale-faces. And we 
have here a clue to the whole series of contests that, from 
the appearance of the brigantines to the extermination of 
its defenders, occurred about the capital of the Aztecs. 
On the one side we are to herald exploits of brave Span- 
iards thirsting for victory ; on the other doomed warric.rs 
who had ceased to value their lives, and seeking only to 
sell them at the dearest rate to their implacable foes. 

The successful transportation across the mountains of 
the planks and "cross-timbers" that were to constitute 



THE FIESTA OF THE BEIGANTINES. 465 



the thirteen " brigantines," was the occasion of a great re- 
joicing, a grand fiesta at Tezcuco, in which all concurred. 
By the circuitous mountain-path traversed, the distance 
was eighteen Spanish leagues,* over such broken ground 
as we have described. The vessels had to be carried, 
board by board, timber by timber ; this so extended the 
line of march, that, from the head to the rear of the 
column was a distance of two Spanish leagues — five 
miles. In the van were a hundred foot and eight horse, 
as a guard, with "ten thousand Tlascalans" — one hun- 
dred and twenty-five, according to the rule of discount 
which Diaz supplies — and a like number of Spaniards and 
Tlascalans in the rear. Besides these, there were also 
two thousand porters with provisions. Four days were 
required for the march, and when the procession entered 
the town, it was received with the beating of Indian 
drums, and other rejoicings. Three days to recruit were 
then allowed the Tlascalans, after which they were sum- 
moned to a warlike expedition. 

Secretly resolving to make the northern circuit of the 
lagunas, as far as Tacuba — the rendezvous after the 
night retreat — to study his ground on every side, Cortez 
started with an expeditionary force of three hundred foot 
and twenty-five horse, fifty archers and musketeers, six 
cannon and " thirty thousand," viz., three hundred and 
eighty Tlascalans. The movement was a reconnois- 
sance in force, intended also to remove whatever obsta- 
cles existed to the complete investment of the city on 
that side, by driving in every hostile garrison. The 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 227. 
30 



466 



A RECONNOISSANCE. 




CORTEZ RECONNOITRES THE CITY ON THE NORTH. 

reason assigned in his despatches — that he might appear 
driven by Indian obstinacy to the adoption of a cruel 
policy — waS; that he went to Tacuba to parley with the 
Mexicans ; to bring about, if possible, a peace* — an idea 
entirely at war with his intentions. 

The first conflict took place at Joltoca, situated on a 
small island in the salt laguna of that name. The enemy 



* Tolsom's Cortez, page 229. 



TOPOGRAPHICAL BLUNDER, 467 



being routed and driven out, the march was resumed 
and the column proceeded to the " large and heautiful 
city,'' that is, the small Indian village of Guatitan, and 
this was found deserted by its inhabitants. There Cortez 
lodged the second night after leaving Tezcuco. Leaving 
this he advanced to Tenianca. Meeting no opposition, he 
continued to Acapuzalco.* Hurrjdng on from this point, 
he reached Tacuba the same evening. After his allies 
had plundered and partly burned this village, he advanced 
to the head of the causeway, and held a parley with the 
Mexicans without effect. Diaz says he here attempted to 
re-enter the city, and was allowed to advance so far on the 
causeway as to fall into a well laid plot, which subjected 
him to a serious loss : viz., five Spaniards killed and many 
wounded.-]- This is a mere invention. Cortez was too 
good a soldier to be twice entrapped in the same snare. 
On the return a night was again spent at Guatitan. The 
second was passed at the friendly village of Aculman, on 
an island in a little fresh-water lake of the same name. 
There friends met and escorted him back to Tezcuco. 

The only noteworthy feature of this expedition is the 
laughable mistake into which Diaz and the historians of 
the conquest have fallen, from their ignorance of the 
country. Diaz again mistakes the causeway for a dike. 
The causeway which connected Joltoca with the main 
land, was cut through ; to this Diaz unfortunately adds, 
" and thereby flooded the country."^ The country on 
this, the north side, is higher than the water, and the 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 230. 

t Lockhart's Diaz, vol. II., page 22. % Ibid., page 20. 



468 Sandoval's expedition. 



natural discharge of the Joltoca in the opposite direc- 
tion, is only restrained by a slight barrier from flowing 
into the Tezcuco ; so that, the only flood these elevated 
lagunas could create would be first felt in the Spanish 
quarters at Tezcuco ! Gales cannot change the result 
here, for the gentle south wind disturbs not the equili- 
brium of these waters. Thus we add another instance 
to the many, in which, the blind leading the blind, all 
have fallen into the ditch. Diaz charges as " shocking 
blunders of Gomora"* the declarations of Cortez, that 
he concealed from the Tezcucans his design of marching 
to Tacuba, and also that he went there for the purpose 
of a parley. Who is the real blunderer? 

The next event was the march of Sandoval with his 
division to the relief of the Chalcans. On his arrival 
there he was joined by the Indians of that town and their 
allies in fabulous numbers, of course. The united force 
immediately moved against Guastapeque — peque meaning 
hill. At this place there was a double battle, but ulti- 
mately the enemy was driven out, and pursued to Aca- 
pictla, a strongly fortified position, which Sandoval carried 
by assault, and with so great a slaughter, that, Cortez in- 
forms us,f for a whole hour the little stream that sur- 
rounded the town ran red with blood, so that the thirsty 
soldiers could not drink it ! Diaz is so scandalized at the 
impossibility of this, that he alleges it to be one of the 
^'shocking blunders" J of Gomora. Other matters con- 
nected with this expedition were more congenial to the 

* LocKHART'sZ)iaz,vol.II.. page25. J Lockhart's Diaz, vol. II., page 
t Folsom's Cortez, page 235. 30. 



MORE WOMAN-BRANDING. 469 



Sepoy piety of Diaz, as that, " our troops satisfied them- 
selves by capturing some few pretty females, and other 
objects of value.'' After this engagement, Sandoval 
returned to Tezcuco, bringing with him great numbers of 
prisoners, among whom were many beautiful Indian 
females. 

The Emperor Guatamozin was greatly excited at the 
result of Sandoval's expedition. Immediately upon its 
return to Tezcuco, a fleet of "two thousand canoes"!* 
was despatched with an expedition consisting of twenty 
thousand, viz., two hundred and fifty warriors.-j* Passing 
through the narrow laguna of Xochimilco, it made a 
descent upon the territories of Chalco, with but indifferent 
success. This expedition of the Aztecs repulsed, nothing 
of importance claimed attention. In the interval the 
captives taken by Sandoval were distributed. These, 
Diaz tells us, Cortez resolved should be marked with a red 
hot iron."-|" This brutal process was followed by an exhi- 
bition of Spanish piety, unlike aught we have yet had, 
and more degrading in its nature than anything the Brah- 
minical system presents — a sale of those rewards reserved 
for the righteous, to the vilest of mortals for money. 

"A Dominican friar, Pedro Malgarejo de Urea, from 
Seville, brought with him a Papal bull, by which," says 
Diaz, ''we obtained absolution for all the sins we may 
have been guilty of during these wars. By means of this 
bull Urea amassed a large fortune in the space of a few 
months, with which he returned to Spain" !{ Such was 

* Lockhakt's Diaz, vol. II,, page 30. f Ibid., page 31. J Ibid., page 32 



470 ANOTHER RECONNOISSANCE. 



the religion ! imported into Mexico four years before the 
breaking out of the Protestant reformation in Europe. 
The ship which bore this vagrant monk, had also a supply 
of military stores for sale. These were so opportune that 
Cortez declares them to be '^a succor that God miracu- 
lously sent us at a time when greatly needed."* To the 
pretended gift of God, the divine pardon, he does not even 
refer as one of the evidences of heavenly favor ! Had 
this pardon been genuine, it would indeed have been a 
miracle greater than any ever wrought by monk or priest, 
with or without a bull, or other agency of Satan. As a 
companion piece to this, Diaz tells us, the main inducement 
go large a party as twenty thousand and over of the allies 
had to join the expedition was, not the hope of plunder 
alone, " but the expectation of a plentiful repast of human 
flesh, which never failed after an engagement" ! 

The reconnoissance on the northern side completed, on 
the 5th day of April, 1521, Cortez marched along the 
eastern shore of the laguna of Tezcuco for a similar pur- 
pose. His force then consisted of twenty horse and three 
hundred foot, fully equipped, besides " twenty thousand," 
viz., two hundred and fifty Tezcucans, the Tlascalans 
having been sent to their homes. The first night they 
lodged at the hamlet of Talmavalco, within the jurisdic- 
tion of Chalco. On the next day they arrived at that 
village, and there received a new accession of "forty 
thousand,"-]- viz., five hundred, making, with the Tezcucans, 
a body of seven hundred and fifty, a number extravagantly 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 236. f lUd., page 239. 



MARCH INTO THE HOT COUNTRY. 471 



large for such a district to furnish, and inconveniently so 
for the purposes contemplated by the expedition. 

At dawn on the third day the march was resumed, and 
they entered upon a rugged mountain district, which 
forms the southern rim of the valley. The inhabitants, 
allies of the Aztecs, assembled upon the principal hills, 
and bade defiance to their invader. An assault was made 
upon a party perched on one of these rocky fastnesses, 
and repulsed with serious loss. A second attack upon 
another was more fortunate. Having made a lodgment 
upon an equal elevation near by, the crossbowmen and 
musketeers opened a damaging fire upon the garrison of 
the neighboring mount, whereupon the latter threw down 
their arms and proposed a surrender, which was accepted. 
So easy were the terms, the victorious party on the first 
hill were induced to accept the same capitulation also. 

And here we have to turn aside from our narrative to 
notice the oft recurring instances of the extraordinary 
qualities exhibited by so young a man as Cortez. In 
statesmanship he seems to be the counterpart of Ca3sar in 
dealing with the Gothic tribes. When the alliance of 
any tribe was of advantage to him, he was most scru- 
pulous in observing his treaties, while he exterminated 
without scruple all whom he could not rely upon. 

Peace thus settled, Cortez remained with his new-made 
friends two days, and then proceeded to Guastepeque, the 
scene of the exploits of Sandoval. Here he describes a 
garden, belonging to its chief, as being two leagues in cir- 
cuit. In it his army took up their quarters. This 
description is altogether a conte d'Espagne. There is 



472 



GARDEN OF GUASTEPEQUE. 




COETEZ MAKES A COMPLETE CIRCIJIT OF THE CITY. 

nothing, indeed, in nature more beautiful than the scenes 
presented to the eye, in some of those valleys which open 
to the south ; and it would require little artistic labor to 
make them what Cortez describes them then to be — " the 
most beautiful and refreshing I ever beheld."* In these 
spots all the beauty and loveliness of the hot country is 
found without its deleterious malaria. Cottages em- 



Folsom's Cortez, page 242. 



CAPTURE OF CUERNAVACA. 473 



bowered in trees are covered with wild flowers and 
creepers; while the mountain rills that water their 
natural gardens add materially to the general effect by 
their sparkle and their murmur. 

Having now passed the mountains, they proceeded by 
a circuitous route to Yantepeque, the inhabitants of which 
fled at their approach, and were pursued to Gihutepeque, 
" where some women and young persons were taken pri- 
soners ;"* from thence the march was continued to Cuerna- 
vaca. The beauty of this place seems to have so charmed 
Cortez, that he resolved upon it as his future residence, 
and it really afterwards became the home of the Marquis 
of the valley ; this title and this village being bestowed 
upon him by the emperor about the same time. Great 
difficulty was found at first in effecting a lodgment on the 
side of the ravine, opposite the one by which they 
approached. Succeeding at last, the village was carried 
by assault. Here they remained but a single night. 
Turning northward, Cortez recrossed the dividing ridge 
where it rises to an elevation of ten thousand feet above 
the sea. He complains of the sufferings his men and 
horses endured there from thirst. They did not, perhaps, 
undergo more than did the author and horse on the same 
route 5 yet the Conquistador adds, some of his Indians 
perished from that cause on the march ! Such a calamity 
the cold made impossible in so short a period. The night 
Avas spent on the mountain seven leagues from Cuernavaca.-\ 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 243. It stands close under the shadow of 

t " Cuernavaca is to this day cele- the huge mountains that shield it 

brated as one of finest spots on earth, from the northern blast ; and it ia 



474 CAPTURE OF XOCHIMILCO. 



Early on the second day the column re-entered the 
great valley, and arrived at Sochimilco, by the side of the 
fresh-water lagw^a of that name, the Xochimilco of the 
maps. Cortez calls it a great city.* It was, most probably, 
then as now, a mere hamlet. This place, though fortified 
by bog and ditches, he finally carried and held in force, 
as a point from which to conduct his reconnoissance of 
the southern front, protecting his position by the very 
works the enemy had constructed to oppose him. The 
inhabitants had vainly supposed themselves secure from 
the Spaniards by the intervention of their ditches j and 
not until they were shot down at a distance by fire-arms, 
crossbows, &c., and found no cover from such, to them 
unusual weapons, did they fly from their efiect. Even 
then they rallied, returned, and renewed the attack with 
a boldness which Cortez says "astonished him;" even 
rushing upon the quarter he occupied. Yet it was only 
to be subjected to an encounter with another, to them 
still strange element of war ; to be trampled on by the 
cavalry. "Then they again," says he, "fled from the 
fear of the horses."f " Though some of them," he con- 
tinues, " discovered so much courage as to wait their ad- 
vance. On this occasion Cortez escaped death only by 



at the same time protected from the of a fine day in a voluptuous climate, 

extreme heat of the tropics by its ele- the beautiful scenery, and the happy 

ration of 3000 feet. The immense faces of the people celebrating New 

church edifices here proclaim the mu- Year's day in the shade of the orange- 

nificence of Cortez ; vrhile the garden trees, made an impression upon a 

of Laborde, open to the world, shows traveller not easily forgotten." — Mexi- 

with what elegant taste he squan- co and its Religion. 

dered his three several fortunes accu- * Folsom's Cortez, page 246. 

mulated in mining. The combination f Ibid., page 247. 



SECOND DAY AT XOCHIMILCO. 475 



the timely aid of a Tlascalan, who rushed to his assistance 
when his horse stumbled in the midst of a crowd of 
enemies. A Spaniard, also, who, Diaz says, was Ghris- 
tobal de Olea* came up at the critical moment, and aided 
him to remount. When the Aztecs were finally routed 
after a hard day's fight, the openings where the bridges 
had been were ordered to be filled up ; then " after using 
much precaution, and setting many guards, we retired for 
the night." Thus terminated the first day at Xocliimilco. 
On the next there came from Mexico, by the canal and 
the narrow laguna of Xocliimilco, an army of "twelve 
thousand warriors," viz. one hundred and fifty, "in a 
great fleet of canoes exceeding two thousand in number ; 
at the same time the country was covered by the multi- 
tude that poured in by land."f A remarkable incident 
this day was the appearance of Aztecs armed with Spanish 
swords, taken the night of the sorrowful retreat. On the 
second contest the infantry was left to defend the town, 
while Cortez sallied forth with the Tlascalans. These he 
subsequently divided into squads, which scoured the plain, 
and put the whole undisciplined multitude to flight. He 
then assailed a party that had taken refuge on one of the 
precipitous hills scattered through the valley. By the 
aid of his Tlascalans, these were driven upon a party 
placed to intercept their retreat, by which more than five 
hundred were slain."J It was " ten o'clock in the day" 
when the horse returned from the pursuit to their friends 
in Xochimilco, who all this while were engaged with those 



* Lockhakt's Diaz, vol. II., page f Folsom's Cortez, page 248. 
44. % Ibid., page 249. 



476 RECONNOISSANCE TO TACUBA. 



of the enemy who had disembarked from the canoes. 
Here, hkewise, being again victorious, they obtained as 
trophies two of the swords the Indians had used. But 
the Aztecs, dissatisfied with the sudden repulse of the 
morning, once more on the same day assailed the Span- 
iards from a causeway, but with the usual result. 

After setting the town on fire, they left the place the 
next day pursued by the enemy, who construed their 
movement into a flight. Continuing the reconnoissance, 
however, without heeding these attacks, Cortez now ad- 
vanced to Cuyocan, which place he contemplated making 
his head-quarters during the siege. He states with great 
brevity his reason for selecting this point; that it was 
situated about equidistant from Mexico, Coluacan, Gliu- 
Tubusco, Iztapdlapa, Cuitaguaca, and Mezqueque. After 
reconnoitering the causeway, which there leads directly 
to the city, Cortez on his return set those houses on fire, 
that were not occupied by his party. Accomplishing the 
object of his visit, he proceeded to ChaiJultepec, where the 
spring which supplies the city with fresh water is situated ; 
from thence he advanced to Tacuba, the scene of his for- 
mer visit, and the rendezvous of the night retreat. Hav- 
ing remained at that place several hours, the march w*is 
resumed by the route of the northern exploration. Two 
days afterwards he was once more welcomed to hospita- 
ble quarters at the friendly village of Aculman. 

Thus was completed one of the most extraordinary ex- 
peditions recorded of so small a force. Exposed at all 
times to attack from an enemy in full force, both in front 
and rear, on the plain and in the mountain passes, it yet 



CANAL FORMED BY CORTEZ. 477 



fully succeeded. From time to time, while advancing, the 
enemy was beaten in the field ; besides which, the hostile 
garrisons placed upon the route were driven in, and Gua- 
tamozin left without a single post outside the contemplated 
lines of circumvallation. The enemy having command 
of the water, and resting on Mexico as a pivot, could 
assail the expedition step by stej) as it advanced. Ever}^ 
day, therefore, required new victories, not only to accom- 
plish the direct purpose of the march, but to disentangle 
the troops from daily ambuscades and surprises. There 
is in the narrative of this expedition, as usual, an accu- 
racy of detail, and a straightforwardness in the Conquis- 
tador, strikingly in contrast mth the blind halting of 
Diaz. The latter adds nothing to the account of his pre- 
decessor, excex3t a few apparently invented incidents, and 
a stereotyped phrase which he inserts from place to place — 
"we here captured a number of beautiful females and 
other valuable plunder." Wherever topography is in- 
volved Diaz ceases to be of any assistance, as we have 
often before remarked. We use him for other purposes. 

The next event, and one that is unsurpassed by any in 
the war, Avas the completion and launching of the flotilla, 
the " brigantine.i" of the historians. The shallowing of 
the water towards the shore, made this a work of extra- 
ordinary difficulty. To remedy it, hurdles or bundles of 
sticks were laid in the soft mud, in two parallel lines, 
fastened with stakes, and loaded with stones, so as to con- 
fine a little rill there to a straight channel, until it reached 
deep water. Both a harbor and canal were thus formed 
in the muddy shore of the lagu7ia, and the constant flow 



478 ADVENTURERS ATTRACTED. 



of water prevented filling them again. The meanderings 
of the little watercourse through the solid earth had also 
to be straightened and deepened into a canal, which made 
the whole a work of great labor and much ingenuity. 
This is evidently designed to be described by Cortez when 
he says, " it was protected by a coating and a fence."* 
The coating must necessarily have been hurdles, and the 
fence, the stakes that secured the work. Modern engi- 
neering could have added nothing, except, perhaps, to sink 
a couple of pier-heads at the outer extremity, if it was to 
remain a permanent structure. 

Between the first of January and the middle of April, 
in the midst of hostilities, and under the eyes of a watchful 
enemy, this extraordinary labor was effected. It is well 
characterized by Cortez as " a grand work, and certainly 
worthy of admiration."-]- It is to be regretted, however, 
after stating all other things correctly, as the present land- 
marks clearly indicate, he should have given to it an im- 
possible depth in his descriptions — twelve feet instead of 
twelve inches. 

The first letter, or despatch, after the organization of 
the town council, ayuntamiento, in the camp at Vera Cruz, 
was now producing its natural fruits in Spain. Court and 
emperor, no less than the common people, Avere filled with 
wonder at the El Dorado discovered, and which its dis- 
coverer was then engaged in subjugating. Imperial favor 
inclining to the side of the bold adventurer, the statements 
of the Conquistador were at once accredited as truth, in 
spite of the denunciations of the bishop of Borges, and 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 257. f Ibid., page 256. 



MUSTER OF THE FORCES. 479 



even of the good Las Casas. Adventurers began to flock 
to Vera Cruz. Ships laden with warUke stores came 
there seeking a market ; and lastly, as we have seen, one 
of those traffickers in the souls of men, a retailer of the 
pretended gifts of God, a monk Avith a Papal bull, scented 
the gold of this far-off region. In this way all the losses 
of the disastrous retreat, and of the previous campaign, 
were made good, as appeared from a new muster of the 
forces. 

On the 28th day of April, 1521, the " brigantines" 
being completed and launched, Cortez reviewed his whole 
force. It consisted of eighty-six horse, one hundred and 
eighteen archers and musketeers, and seven hundred and 
odd foot, armed with swords and bucklers. With these 
were three heavy iron cannon, [probably six-pounders] 
fifteen small copper field-pieces, and ten hundred weight 
of powder.* Messengers were then sent to all the tribes 
in alliance, demanding the promised auxiliaries. On 
Whitsunday the Tlascalans arrived at Tezcuco ; " accord- 
ing to a return made to us by the captains, there were 
fifty thousand. "-^ After the fiesta caused by this arrival 
was over, on the second day of Whitsun week there 
was a parade, for the purpose of distributing the force 
into three divisions. Tacuba was assigned to Alvarado 
as his point of attack, with thirty horse, eighteen archers 
and musketeers, and one hundred and fifty infantry, 
armed with swords and bucklers, besides twenty-five thou- 
sand, viz. three hundred and twelve, warriors of Tlascala. 
An equal force, under Christoval Olid, was to march with 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 257. f Ihid., page 258. 



480 MUSTER OF THE FORCES. 



Alvarado to Tacuba. From that place they were to pro- 
ceed together to Chapultepec, and there cut the water- 
pipes ; niore likely cut off the pathway, by which the 
Indian water-carriers, aguadores, brought fresh water to 
the city. This accomplished, Alvarado was to return to 
Tacuba and make that his permanent position, while Olid 
was to continue his march to Cuyocan. At that last 
point, it may be remembered, Cortez designed to establish 
his head-quarters. 

Sandoval was to occupy temporarily Iztapalapa with 
twenty-four horse, four musketeers, thirteen bowmen, 
one hundred and fifty infantry, fifty of whom were picked 
men, and thirty-five to forty thousand, viz., four hun- 
dred and fifty to five hundred Tlascalans, though the 
real number of this last force did not exceed two hun- 
dred. This party was to destroy that town, and then 
continue its march until it reached the interior causeways. 
It was to pass them under the protection of the brigan- 
tines, and join Cortez at his proposed camp. Four 
days were consumed in constructing a permanent road 
between the camp of Alvarado, on the causeway of Ta- 
cuba, and the position of Olid, at Cuyocan. After each 
division was settled in its respective quarters, hostilities 
by the several causeways they commanded, were to com- 
mence. We now return to the thirteen " brigantines," 
the flotilla of Cortez. 

A picked body of three hundred men was assigned to 
the flotilla, giving a crew to each of twenty-five, including 
captains and commissioners. Six on each of the vessels 




ROUTE or THE BRIGANTINES. 



482 FIRST BATTLE ON THE WATER. 



were musketeers and archers.* Each also had a small 
brass cannon. The plan arranged, Cortez went on board 
of one, and by the united force of sail and oars, proceeded 
to the southward. Landing near the Pinon, he carried 
that important military position f by assault, and put its 
entire garrison to the sword. Immediately on the con- 
clusion of this affair, the enemy came down with his 
whole force of canoes, the " brigantines" lying in shore. 
Desirous to make an impression in his first encounter on 
the water, for the reason, as he justly states, that "the 
brigantines were the key of the whole war, as both the 
enemy and ourselves would suffer most by water, it pleased 
our Lord that while we were looking at each other a wind 
arose from the land, favorable for an attack upon them,"J 
whereupon orders were given to the commanders to break 
through the fleet before them, and to pursue them until 
they took refuge in the city of Mexico. 

Cortez thus describes the engagement : — " As the wind 
was fair, we bore down upon the midst of them, and 
although they fled as fast as possible, we broke an im- 
mense number of them, and destroyed many of the enemy 
in a style worthy of admiration. "J Thus the flotilla 
effected the same results among the light canoes, upon 
the water, that the horse achieved upon the land, crushing 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 259. the batteries of Santa Anna erected 

f When General Scott entered the on this PiiSon ; and it was not until 

valley of Mexico, he proposed to ad- after the position was found inipreg- 

vance to the city by the modern cause- nable, that the march around the 

way, built for the Vera Cruz road, southern limit of the valley was re- 

The van-guard had actually proceeded solved upon, 
several miles along this route, when % Folsoji's Cortez, page 264. 
its further progress was stopped by 



FIRST WEEK OF THE SIEGE. 483 



at once an enemy unacquainted with such an extraordi- 
nary agent in war. 

Both parties on shore watched with intense anxiety the 
result of this encounter. The effect of the S|)anish success 
depressed the spirits of Guatamozin, while it elated those 
of the jpale-faces to the same extent. That no time might 
be lost in supporting his land forces, the flotilla immedi- 
ately sailed around to the southern causeway, and made 
a lodgment there upon an isolated spot, within half a 
league of the city. Being joined by a party from Cuyo- 
can, a battery was erected, and one of the three heavy 
iron cannon so planted as to rake the whole causeway. 
It made great havoc among the Indians, who covered the 
road as far as the city. Cortez, now, instead of Cuyocan, 
chose this point as his permanent head-quarters. He then 
directed the division of Sandoval to join him by the cause- 
way from Iztapalapa. When that captain, after pass- 
ing Mexicalzingo, came to any place which had been 
demolished by the Mexicans, the " brigantines" were used 
as bridges,* fully demonstrating the character of those 
vessels and their exceeding light draft. 

Sandoval first led his division to Cuyocan, where for 
the time it was lodged ; then, taking with him ten horse- 
men, he returned to the causeway, and following it 
repaired to the camp of Cortez. Hostilities continued 
there for the six subsequent days, without any important 

* "When I learned that the In- them in passing, of which they formed 

dians had made a considerable breach a bridge for the infantry to cross over 

in the causeway, so that the people the breach." — Folsom's Cortez, page 

could no longer pass over it with 269. 
ease, I sent two brigantines to assist 



484 COMPLETE INVESTMENT. 



result. The Mexicans persevered in their attack from 
the causeway and their canoes, notwithstanding the raking 
fire of the heavy ordnance and the small brass swivel 
each brigantine carried."^ During this timCj the remainder 
of the flotilla made the circuit of the southern and west- 
ern fronts of the city, as far as the causeway of Tacuba ; 
it also entered by the canals into its suburbs. Thus 
ended the first week of the siege. The remark of Cortez, 
that "the brigantines" passed around the city, must be 
understood only as extending this circuit to the flats of 
San Lazarus on the north. To have continued it around 
the east front, would not only have been difficult, but 
unnecessary. 

The result so far cut off" the Mexicans from their ordi- 
nary supplies of food and fresh water. The Spanish lines 
were now drawn close around the city on the south and 
west ; while the road connecting the two posts at Tacubaf 
and Cuyocan with the camp of Cortez, upon the southern 
causeway, was protected on the side of the city by the 
flotilla. The less important causeway, the northern, 
extending to Guadalupe or Tepeac, was left unguarded. 
Cortez pretends, for effect, in his despatch, that he was 
ignorant of its existence, until informed of it by Alva- 
radojj which was impossible. The truth was, it could 
not be occupied, though nearest to Tezcuco, until by the 
contraction of his lines one of the divisions could be 
spared for that purpose ; and not even then, unless the 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 267. the roads. To the author's best re- 

f The causeway of Tacuba does not collection, it does not exceed a milo 

extend all the way from Mexico to in length. 

that suburb, but only to the fork of % Folsom's Cortes, page 269. 



RESULTS. 485 



brigantines could be made to supply food and water to the 
garrison of that barren spot.* 

All the plans so far were completely successful. They 
were the triumph of civilized art over the highest efforts 
of savage courage ever witnessed. A mutitude of In- 
dians — ^men, women, and children — were now crowded 
together within this fortress, as Cortez properly calls the 
city, to die of hunger and thirst, or by the destructive 
weapons of Europeans. From this date, the length of 
the siege was to be determined by the limits of human 
endurance. When the powers of nature were exhausted, 
then the city was to fall into the hands of the Spaniards. 
There was to be no surrender, but to Death. 



CHINAMPAS IMPROPERLY CALLED FLOATING GARDENS. 

A difficulty the traveller everywhere encounters in Mexico, is that he can 
believe nothing he hears, even on the most trifling subject, without careful 
examination and weighing of testimony. As he cannot examine everything 
himself, he is constantly liable to be imposed upon by taking for granted 
that which is everywhere aflSrmed. Humboldt for once, with all his caution, 
seems to have fallen into the common trap, and credited, without examina- 
tion, the story of the floating gardens. 

The chinampas are formed on the fresh-water mud on each side of the 
canal of Chalco, from the south-east corner of the city to a point near the 
ancient village of Mexicalzingo, and for a part of the way they are on both 
sides of that beautiful but now neglected pasSo, Las Vegas ; there are also 
a small number near the causeway of Tacubaya, and in other parts of the 
marsh ; their number might be extended without limit if it was not regulated 
by the demands of the vegetable market of Mexico. Chinampas are formed 
by laying upon the soft mud a very thick coating of reeds, or rushes, in the 
form and about the size of one of our largest canal scows. Between two 
chinampas a space of about half the width of one is left, and from this open 

* It must be understood that the Vera Cruz road, marked on the map as 
a causeway, did not then exist. 



486 



CHINAMPAS. 




CHINAMPAS. 



space the mud is dipped up and poured upon the bed of dry rushes, where it 
dries, and forms a rich " muck" soil, which constitutes the garden. As the 
specific gravity of this garden is much greater than that of the water, or of 
the substratum of mud and water combined, it gradually sinks down into its 
muddy foundation ; and in a few years it has to be rebuilt by laying upon 
the top of the garden a new coating of rushes and another covering of mud. 
Thus they have been going on for centuries, one garden being placed upon 
the top of another, and a third placed over all, so soon as the second gives 
signs of being swallowed up in the all-devouring mud. 

This is the whole story of the chinampas, the most fertile and beautiful 
little gardens upon the face of the earth. A correct picture of them would 
be poetry enough, without the addition of falsehood ; for whether it is the 
rainy season or the dry season, it is always the same to them. They know 
no exclusive seed-time, and have no especial season for harvest ; but blossoms 
and ripe fruits grow side by side, and flowers flourish at all seasons. As 
market gardens they are unrivalled, and to them Mexico is indebted for its 
abundant supplies. 

The evidence that Humboldt* produces in favor of floating gardens, viz., 
that he saw floating islands of some thirty feet in length in the midst of the 



* Essai Politique, vol. II., page 61. 



GHINAMPAS. 487 



current of rivers, amounts to little in this case ; for every one that has 
travelled extensively in tropical lovrlands has seen vegetation spring up upon 
floating masses of brush-vrood. Where earth torn from the river bank is so 
bound together by living roots as to form a raft, it will always float for a 
little while upon the current, provided that its specific gravity does not mate- 
rially exceed that of the water ; and those grasses that flourish best in water 
will spring up and grow upon these islands. Peat, too, in bogs, will float 
and form islands, for the simple reason that it is of less specific gravity than 
water ; and a scanty vegetation will also spring up on these peat islands. But 
all this furnishes no evidence that the invariable law of nature, which carries 
to the bottom the heaviest body, has been suspended at Mexico. Had the 
floating gardens been built in large boats, made water-tight and covered over, 
they might have floated. But, unfortunately, the Indians had not the means 
for constructing such boats. Even timber-rafts would have become saturated 
in time, and sunk, as rafts of logs waiting to be sawed into lumber do if kept 
too long in the "mill-pond. 

There is another law of nature, which must not be lost sight of, which is 
at war with the idea of a garden floating on a bed of rushes ; and that is, 
capillary attraction, which would raise particles of water, one by one, among 
the fibres of the rushes until the frail raft on which the earth rested was 
saturated — and still pressing upward, the busy drops would penetrate the 
superincumbent earth, moistening and adding to the specific gravity of the 
garden by filling the porous earth until it became too heavy to float, if it 
ever had floated. — Wilson's Mexico and its Religion. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

CAPTURE AND DESTRUCTION OF MEXICO. 

Commencement of the siege, 488 — The fabulous numbers of allies reduced, 
489 — Cortez retreats and abandons a cannon, 490 — The advantage Cortez 
derived from his cavalry, 490 — The result of two days of fighting, 491 — 
Cortez divides his flotilla, 491 — Cortez makes another attack, 493 — Cortez 
burns the fabulous palaces of Mexico, 493 — Hunger, thirst, and the small- 
pox hasten the event, 494 — New fables and further reductions by Diaz, 494 
— Submission of the neighboring hamlets — defeat of Alvarado, 495 — Re- 
markable fortitude of the Mexicans, 496 — The Mexican trenches — how 
made, 496 — Cortez suffers a serious repulse, 497 — Cortez rescued from the 
enemy, 498 — A fearful retribution, 498 — Indian peculiarities in war, 499 — 
Secondary expeditions during the interval, 500 — Cortez resolves to demolish 
the city, 500 — Cortez plans a successful ambuscade, 500 — Cortez providing 
cannibals with their food, 501 — Cortez in possession of seven-eighths of the 
city, 502 — The famine in the city, 502 — The miserable condition of the citi- 
zens, 503 — Guatamozin prefers death to a surrender, 503 — The capture of 
Guatamozin, 504 — The torturing of the prisoners, 505 — The motive not 
understood in Spain, 507 — Result of Cortez' policy, 508 — Cortez governed 
by policy, 508 — Exaggerations reduced to reality, 509 — Cortez one of the 
great men of his age, 510 — Cortez eclipsed by Pizarro, 511 — The youthful 
hero Guatamozin, 512. 

The work of slaughter was now fairly systematized. 
For two days, from the newly established camjD, the 
attack continued. The forces at head-quarters — after the 
departure of Sandoval — consisted of the crews of the 
"brigantines," amounting to two hundred and fifty men, 
and two hundred Spanish infantry, and among them 
twenty-five archers and musketeers. The remainder of 
the force at Cuyocan was added to this, excepting ten 
horse left at the entrance of the causeway to keep the 

(488) 



FABULOUS NUMBERS REDUCED. 489 



inhabitants of that village from falling upon the rear. 
Thus supported, the assault began. The " brigantines," 
placed on either side of the road, raked both causeway 
and ditches, while the infantry, covered by their fire, 
moved towards the city. At the same time Sandoval 
and Alvarado made strong diversions on the north and 
west. Cortez had advanced but a little before he found 
his progress interrupted by a ditch and breastwork, 
thrown up by the Mexicans. He describes this transverse 
work as being a spear's length in width, and foolishly 
adds, " the same in depth."* 

Having carried this, no further obstruction was met 
with until they came to the entrance of the city. There 
a similar intrenchment was also won by the aid of the 
boats. This, says Cortez, they could not have done, 
unless aided by the " brigantines." By means of these 
the land forces passed the water together with " eighty 
thousand' ''■\ Indian allies ! These, it must be recollected, 
were in addition to the " twenty-five thousand" with Al- 
varado at Tacuba,J and the unmentioned thousands fol- 
lowing Sandoval at the barren rock of Tepeac or Guada- 
lupe. But as a narrow causeway, built for foot-passengers 
alone,§ was the only means of access to the city, a thou- 
sand Indians must have seriously incommoded the move- 
ments of the disciplined force, and jeopardized the success 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 279. file," and " Indian file," are used as 

t Ibid., page 272. synonymous. 

X Ibid., page 259. The causeways were built with re- 

g The custom of Indians in war, as ference to the movement, of such 

on a journey, is uniformly to move in bodies, with only width enough to 

" single file." It is so to this day give the embankment consistency, 
throughout Spanish America. " Single 



490 CORTEZ RETREATS. 



of the siege. Let us drop then the thousands, and assume 
eighty as the actual number of aUies engaged in this 
causeway expedition. We must do so often. 

When they had advanced so far as actually to enter 
the city, a barricade more formidable than the others 
was encountered. It required two hours of steady fight- 
ing, to dislodge the enemy from it ; nor was it effected 
even then, until the Spaniards, leaping into the water 
and assailing their flanks, compelled the Mexicans to 
give way. Following this advantage, they came to yet 
another opening, the bridge over which had not been 
moved. Passing on, they entered one of the squares of 
the city, and planted there one of their cannon, which 
did serious injury to the enemy. Pressing forward, they 
now compelled the Mexicans to take refuge within the 
enclosure of the great pyramid. There, discovering the 
Spaniards had no horses with them, the Aztecs rallied 
and drove them from the Plaza. The rout was so com- 
plete, that the cannon was left behind. 

The appearance of three horses was, however, suffi- 
cient, not only to relieve the Spaniards now hard pressed ; 
but to enable them to resume the offensive, recover the 
Plaza, and again obtain jDossession also of the enclosure 
and its pyramid. At evening, returning to their camp, 
the assailants were so closely pressed, " that, had it not 
been for the cavalry, the Spaniards would have suffered 
great loss,"* says Cortez. " Notwithstanding," he adds, 
" the enemy saw that they were suffering by this means, 
the dogs rushed on in such a rapid manner that we could 

* FoLSOii's Cortez, page 274. 



RESULTS OF TWO DAYS' FIGHTING. 491 



not stop them; nor would tliej desist from following 
us."* This is plainly confessing to the rout of the in- 
fantry, cavalry, and artillery ; and that, too, by savages 
armed only with flint-pointed wooden spears, and bows 
and arrows. The Mexicans in these encounters inflicted 
repeated wounds, but did not kill a single Spaniard in 
this whole day of alternate success. Such fortitude on 
their part, is unprecedented. The only explanation is, 
that they preferred death to Spanish slavery, or to the 
Tlascalan torture. 

While this assault was in progress, the Mexicans were 
also attacked by Alvarado and Sandoval; so that this 
self-devoted people not only resisted with success the 
main column, but discomfited likewise those two others 
in their rear. At this time, it must be borne in mind that 
the Indians assembled at Cuyocan, in the rear of Cortez, 
were in open rebellion, but eflectually prevented from 
making any movement against his camp by the ten horse 
stationed at the land-entrance of the causeway ,j- This 
rebellion, however, was neutralized by the arrival of a 
brother of Don Fernando, with " tliirty-five thousand (say 
three hundred or so) TezcucansTX These were in addition 
to the other " twenty thousand"! sent to other points. 
Thus passed the two first days of the siege. 

Cortez now ventured on a new measure of the greatest 
importance. It was the separation of his flotilla into two 
squadrons. Seven were still to remain and act with him 
as heretofore. The remaining six were to pass around 
to the north side of the city, and patrol the flats of San 

* FoLSOii's Cortez, 275. f Ibid., page 271. t Ibid., 276. 




POSITION OF THE CAMPS OF CORTEZ, ALVARADO, AND SANDOVAL. 



CORTEZ MAKES ANOTHER ATTACK. 493 



Lazarus between the camps of Alvarado and Sandoval. 
Night and day was this duty to be performed, to prevent 
introduction of fresh water and provisions from that 
quarter by native canoes. The commanders of the vessels 
were also to aid those captains in their assaults. 

A respite of two days was now allowed, after which 
Cortez led twenty horse and three hundred Spanish 
infantry, accompanied by a host of Indian allies, to a new 
assault. No longer are these latter counted by thousands ; 
Cortez declares their number to be infinite !* That is, there 
may, perhaps, have been one or two hundreds more added ! 
All the defences on the causeway during the interval of 
quiet had been restored, and were again to be carried as 
on the former occasion. But again the assailants entered 
the Plaza, or public square. While his men were fighting 
from street to street and house to house, their leader with- 
drew, and taking with him " ten thousand," perhaps fifty 
men, proceeded to fill the openings in the road by which 
they had advanced ; this required the steady labor of all 
until vespers. Then the streets were scoured by his 
cavalry, and the people compelled to take refuge in the 
water. 

This day is memorable as that on which those air 
castles fell, which Cortez had built up on his first visit. 
As they had no real existence, the conflagration, though 
great, did little damage. On the contrary, it was a useful 
fire, as it enabled our hero to descend to reality. As the 
night retreat of the previous year permitted him to dis- 
pose of his fabulous treasure, while the real was carefull3' 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 279. 



494 NEW FABLES. 



preserved, so this left him nothing further to demolish 
than the adobe city, and nothing to exterminate but the 
Indians, who were resolute to die in its defence. 

Having rid himself of these old creations, a new but 
necessary one was had to account for the support of " an 
infinite multitude" of allies, without any adequate means. 
The Tlascalans are represented as holding up parts of the 
bodies of the slain, and " exclaiming, at the same time, 
that they would have them for supper that night, and for 
breakfast next day, as was in fact the case."* Using thus 
literally the figurative language of the Indians, •]■ for effect 
at home. The efforts made in Spain to save the character 
of this as a holy war, after the criticism of Las Casas, may 
be seen in the reduction by Diaz of the thirty-five, or 
rather fifty-five thousand J Tezcucans to two ! Two hun- 
dred would doubtless have been nearer the truth ! The 
desperate essays of Diaz " to communicate ideas whereof he 
himself was not possessed," are equally suspicious. While 
those facts which discussion at home had made familiar — 
so long as discussion was allowed — are adroitly handled. 

There is such sameness in the daily contests about a 
beleaguered city, that the mind grows weary with their 
repetition. This the Spanish historian avoids by retail- 
ing fictitious incidents. We enjoy no such privilege, and 
are compelled to omit all that is unconnected with the 



* Folsom's Cortez, page 271. ally their allegorical tales of human 

\ Wilkinson, vol. I., page 398, note, sacrifice, 
in commenting on Herod. II., sec. 45, This was exactly the error of Euro- 
says, Herodotus justly blames the peans, in reference to the Indians. 
Greeks for their ignorance of the % Folsom's Cortez, page 276. 
Egyptian character, in taking liter- 



ROUT OF ALVARADO. 495 



main features of the siege. The impediments found at 
first on entering the city were again and again restored, 
and again and again were they overcome by the Span- 
iards, but each time with less facihty, while the nightly 
retreat to the camp was attended with increasing labor. 
Thus the siege bade fair to be indefinitely prolonged, and 
had been so but for those powerful auxiliaries we have 
already named, Avhich were rapidly depopulating the 
city. 

The surrounding tribes, anticipating the result, has- 
tened to propitiate in time the Spanish invader. Dele- 
gates from every hamlet, on the fresh-water lagunas, came 
to the camp to render their formal submission. They 
testified their sincerity by large gifts of provisions. This 
was particularly the case with Iztapalapa, and the dwell- 
ers about the artificial island-gardens. They showed it 
also by furnishing building materials, when commanded 
to do so, and by the erection of huts for the soldiery. As 
they were now in the midst of the rainy season, a roof was 
necessary to the comfort of the men. While these things 
were going on at the camp, Alvarado was daily engaged 
in combats on the Tacuba causeway. At length, having 
passed an opening of some sixty paces in width, with a 
party of foot only, he proceeded to fill it up, that his 
cavalry might follow, when the Mexicans, perceiving the 
lodgment, and that it consisted of foot only, rushed 
upon and drove them into the water. Four of the num- 
ber were captured, and " sacrificed to the Mexican idols,"* 
most likely tortured, according to Indian custom. But it 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 288. 



496 FORTITUDE OF THE MEXICANS. 



was necessary, as already suggested, to press the charges 
of idolatry and human sacrifice upon the Indians con- 
tinually, for effect in Spain. 

Twenty days had now passed, and, instead of becoming 
intimidated by the daily slaughter, the Mexicans were 
actually growing bolder. Familiarity with the new sys- 
tem of war had so far led them to despise its terrors, that 
it had now become a serious affair for the attacking force 
to penetrate to its accustomed position in the public 
square. Cortez explains the delay, "first, that the enemy 
might have an opportunity to recede from their obstinate 
and implacable policy; and, secondly, because our en- 
trance would be attended with great peril, as they were 
firmly united, and resolved on death."* This is a true 
picture of Indian fortitude, when death has become a 
desirable alternative. The Spartans have doubtless dis- 
plaj-ed greater active courage, but they never equalled 
them in that passive kind which we are accustomed to 
designate as fortitude. 

Before noticing a transient gleam of hope which fell 
upon the despairing prospects of the besieged, it is as well 
to explain the manner in which their barriers were so 
readily constructed. Guatamozin seems to have been 
aware that a general assault was impending, and to have 
made his dispositions accordingly. His Indians, in the 
midst of hunger and thirst, continued to labor by night in 
the restoration of the city's defences, after the exhausting 
contests of the day. They had not the necessary imple- 
ments for digging many inches below the surface of the 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 290. 



CORTEZ SUFFERS A REPULSE. 497 



water, but they could remove the hurdles on which their 
causeways rested, and then they found little difficulty in 
reducing the mud below to a common level with the 
canals on either side. All further excavation was as 
imaginary as it would have been useless. The reality 
was a sufficient annoyance. 

Preparations were now comjDleted for a general assault, 
which Cortez fondly hoped was to result in the capture 
of the city. The necessary orders being given, an advance 
from all the three camps, by the three causeways, was simul- 
taneous. Cortez tarried in the rear of his own column to 
secure its communication with the camp. His infantry, 
unchecked by his presence, heated in the pursuit, and 
stimulated by the near approach of Alvarado, passed a 
broad opening without first adequately restoring the cause- 
way. Guatamozin, advised of this, rallied his followers, 
and made a vigorous charge on the entrapped mass. The 
allies at once fled, and rushed in disorder to the opening 
in the road. Here, while floundering through mud and 
water, in their efforts to gain the opposite side, they were 
joined by the Spanish foot. Soon both were mingled 
with the pursuing enemy, whose superior skill in aquatic 
gymnastics gave them a decided advantage. Upon the 
opposite bank a fearful struggle then ensued, which cost 
the life of many a valiant Castilian. 

Cortez, anticipating this, had placed himself at the head 
of the causeway, and endeavored to restore some order to 
the flying multitude, while rescuing the stragglers from 
the water. But the dripping clothes of the fugitives had 
rendered the road so wet and slippery, no effective 

•32 



498 CORTEZ RESCUED FROM THE ENEMY. 



resistance could be offered, while with their canoes the 
besieged threw so overwhelming a force upon his position 
that even he was at last overpowered. A youthful hero 
saved the life of his commander, and sacrificed his own. 
Another assisted him to a horse. One Guzman was slain, 
and his charger likewise. The eight horsemen, stationed 
on a little island by the side of the causeway to cover the 
retreat, could do nothing on account of the mire. The 
enemy had also skilfully dammed the canal so as to raise 
the water to the level of the road,* and yet had at the same 
time impeded the passage of the "brigantines," and the 
" three thousand [probably less than a hundred] canoes 
of the allies." Cortez barely escaped with his life, com- 
pletely foiled in his grand design of penetrating quite 
through the city to Tacuba. He had erred in encumber- 
ing this movement with so many of his undisciplined 
auxiliaries, and in not calculating upon the possible neces- 
sity of a retreat. He most certainly knew that in such 
an event his Indian hordes would surely crowd to the 
rear, and block up the only avenue of escape. 

The Spaniards were now to suffer as well as to inflict 
suffering. The party stationed in the public plaza were 
first notified of this disaster by the heads of their 
slaughtered companions being thrown into their ranks."!* 
And this monition was followed by an onslaught more 
desperate than any the Conquistadors had yet sustained ; 
" and that, too," says Cortez in his chagrin, " in places 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 294. of those slain in the capture of the first 

f A similar event was witnessed fort were thrown into the other, as a 

at the famous capture of Wyoming, in proof of what had happened. 

the American revolution. The heads 



INDIAN PECULIARITIES IN WAR. 499 



where the enemy would have fled before three horses and 
ten men."* In this defeat a loss of thirty to forty Span- 
iards, and a large number of allies was reported. But 
the most heart-rending sight was that witnessed hy the 
divisions of Alvarado and Sandoval. The Mexicans, to 
strike terror into these divisions, carried the bodies of all 
the Spaniards in their power, whether living or dead, to 
the top of a mound, and there, in plain sight of them,f 
cut out their hearts, and afterwards tumbled their bodies 
to the ground. To this most probable act of an Indian 
enemy, is foolishly added — it was done in sacrifice to their 
idols, though the very existence of Indian idols is still 
problematical. 

Then followed a truly Indian method of rejoicing, 
mingled with the celebration of a religious festival. 
" They burned perfumes, and fumigated the air with cer- 
tain gums peculiar to their country."-|- That day and the 
next this scene was continued with an uproar of horns 
and kettle drums ; the Mexicans appeared to be over- 
whelmed with joy at the magnitude of their success. In 
the meanwhile the defences of the city were renewed, and 
the time required to re-fit and re-arm the Spaniards profit- 
ably employed by Guatamozin in strengthening his means 
of every kind. Ten more days passed with only skir- 
mishes, and a Tlascalan assault, from the side of Tacuba, 
conducted with no small adroitness, to the great surprise 
of all parties.^ 

The late success of the Mexicans aroused the adjacent 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 297. f Ibid., page 298. $ Ibid., page 300. 



500 THE CITY TO BE DEMOLISHED. 



tribes to attack those in alliance with the Spaniards. 
The people of Cuernavaca complained to Cortez that their 
territories were invaded, and solicited him to repel the 
enemy. Tapia was accordingly despatched on a ten days 
tour, with ten horse and eighty infantry, to relieve them. 
This expedition proving entirely successful, Sandoval, two 
days subsequent to his return, was sent on a similar errand, 
to relieve the Otumos,* a barbarous people, dwelling to 
the westward of Mexico. In this way several days more 
were consumed. Finally Guatamozin, having completed 
his defensive measures, even to filling the streets and 
squares with large stones, to impede the passage of cavalry, 
became wearied with the cessation of active hostilities, 
and assumed the offensive himself Alvarado, during the 
absence of Sandoval, was the object of his attack. But 
nothing important resulted from the movement. 

Forty-five days had now passed without any percep- 
tible impression on the city. " In fighting, and in all 
their stratagems for defence, we found them displaying 
more spirit than ever,"-j- says Cortez. He, therefore, 
resolved to level the houses, and to fill up the canals, as 
he advanced. This, to some extent, was of easy accom- 
plishment, considering the fragile material of the Indian 
huts. But the filling up required the construction of 
new channels without the city, for the discharge of accu- 
mulating water ; a work of considerable labor. 

The war now became one of extermination; not of Indians 
only, but of houses and ditches also. The modest number 
of one hundred and fifty thousand auxiliaries, Cortez 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 304. f Ihid., page 308. 



A SUCCESSFUL AMBUSCADE. 501 



professes to have employed on this work of destruction. 
Five or six days they labored, without any important 
incident occurring. After this, collecting from all the 
divisions a chosen body of forty horse, Cortez sent ten in 
advance, as on former occasions. These, with the in- 
fantry, drove the Mexicans by a rapid movement, far 
beyond the cleared space, and confined them there ; while 
Cortez, with the remaining thirty, concealed himself in 
some houses along the line of the accustomed evening 
retreat, after which the advanced party gave way. While 
the Mexicans were rushing in disorderly pursuit of the 
retiring Spaniards, he suddenly burst out upon them, and 
made a terrific slaughter. This well-devised stratagem 
cost the defenders dearly. The number of the slain is set 
down, in the exaggerated language of Cortez, at twelve 
thousand* of the bravest. Without doubt, it was a most 
serious loss to Guatamozin. And from this time his 
prestige seems to have departed. 

''That night," says Cortez, "our allies were well sup- 
plied for supper ; as they took the bodies of the slain, and 
cut them up for food"* — a horrible declaration, though 
utterly untrue, that, leagued with cannibals, his commis- 
sariat was relieved from their maintenance, according to 
his success in slaughter ! This atrocious libel is, however, 
hardly equal to one against his Spanish force, where he 
says, '' And so we returned to the camp with much 
spoil, and food for our allies f'-\ To these straits he was 
driven to make his narrative consistent, as it started out 
with the assertion of fabulous thousands in his train. 

* Folsom's Cartez, page 313. f Ibid., page 315, 



502 FAMINE IN THE CITY. 



The military knowledge of the emperor would have de- 
tected the commissariat impossibility, had his general not 
confessed himself an accessary to cannibalism ! Living 
with such allies on terms of equality, and cohabiting even 
with those addicted to this crime. In his eyes it may 
have been mitigated by their faith j for his were at least 
baptized cannibals. 

We approach the end. The divisions of Cortez and 
Alvarado at last perfected their communication, while the 
city itself w^as fast ceasing to exist. The famishing de- 
fenders were daily more closely straitened in their quar- 
ters, which were now reduced to the swampy portions of 
the town most difficult of access. The palace of Guata- 
mozin, and at least three-fourths of the city, were destroyed 
by the 25th day of July, 1521. The Mexicans could no 
longer restore their defences, and the Spaniards made 
rapid progress. The street leading to Guadalupe was 
gained, and the market-place nearly so by Cortez on the 
one side, and Alvarado on the other. On the 27th 
their divisions met in the city market, where Cortez 
ascended a mound, and surveyed the scene of desolation. 
Seven-eighths of the city was in the hands of the 
Spaniards ; that is, it was levelled with the earth. What 
remained was a small and muddy angle, where land and 
water disputed the possession. 

Here the wounded and the starving were huddled toge- 
ther v/ithout defence, beseeching Cortez to slay them, that 
they might escape their misery, "in loud cries vociferating 
that death was all they wished.'** The scene of famine 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 323. 



CONDITION OF THE BESIEGED. 503 



is thus described : — " We found the streets through which 
we passed filled with women and children, and other 
wretched objects, dying of hunger, and wandering about 
with distressed and haggard looks."* Such was the con- 
dition to which they were reduced while refusing to 
accept of peace ! 

But the slaughter did not cease, though the enemy 
could no longer oppose their destroyers, as Cortez tells us, 
" twelve thousand"-|- were this day slain ! " Our allies 
practising such cruelties toward the enemy that they 
spared the lives of none,"J &c. ; and in a grand assault 
afterwards on this wretched multitude, he declares "forty 
thousand perished, or were taken prisoners. "§ In this 
way the fabulous statements of the population of the city 
were cancelled. Still they kept pressing the enemy more 
closely, that " they might have no space left to move, 
except over dead bodies, and on the terraces left to 
them." 1 1 If these people were cannibals, how could they 
have wanted food? Why should they take to "roots 
and the bark of trees,"][ with such an abundant supply 
of the daintiest morsels of their peculiar appetite cum- 
bering the very ground ? They may have preferred to 
eat the bodies of their enemies, but thus pinched, who 
can believe they would hesitate to sacrifice at least their 
slaves? In these statements Cortez convicts himself and 
those who have followed him of the grossest inconsistency. 

The demon of war had yet to pour out his last vial 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 320. ^ Ibid., page 326. 

t Ihid., page 321. || Ibid. 

X Ibid. i Ibid., Tpage 319. 



504 CAPTURE OF GUATAMOZIN. 



upon this poor remnant. " A hundred and fifty thousand 
allies!'''^ (perhaps five hundred) were now brought to 
devour whatever of unresisting warriors, women and 
children — whose flesh must have become exceedingly 
tender by starvation ! — remained ; and not less effective 
were the movements of the Spanish troops. The land 
force and " brigantines" were so gathered as to enclose 
the small space yet remaining to the helpless multitude, 
and then the heavy guns were turned upon it. But before 
commencing the massacre, which was designed to termi- 
nate at once the siege, the war, and the tribe against 
which it was waged, he demanded the surrender of Gua- 
tamozin. The answer returned was, "he preferred to 

die."t 

And now the consummation was reached. They who 
remained alive had been crushed into so narrow a space, 
that at the time of the conference " many of the inhabit- 
ants were crowded together on piles of dead. Some were 
upon the water, and others were seen swimming about or 
drowning in that part of the lake where canoes were 
lying." J The number that perished, either from drinking 
salt (alkaline) water, from famine or pestilence, amounted, 
says Cortez, to fifty thousand ! Yet there was no thought 
of yielding, and there had ceased to be a city to surren- 
der. But there was a prize which the experience of 
Cortez had taught him to value, as the bee-hunter the 
possession of the queen of the swarm. That prize was 
the person of Guatamozin. He had failed to induce him 
to succumb by the infliction of cruelties upon his people. 

* Folsom's Cortez, page 327. f Ibid., page 328. % Ibid., page 329. 



CAPTURE OF GUATAMOZIN. 505 



Now, and as a last resort, at once to close the war, the 
entire force was so arranged as to secure his person beyond 
a doubt ; the net was closely drawn around him, and he, 
though still resolved to die in arms, found that starvation 
had made him powerless. Then it was that Garci Hol- 
gin, dashing among the canoes, freighted with their now 
famishing warriors, came behind the emperor, and made 
him a prisoner. Thus, scorning to flee, and refusing to 
surrender, after he had become incapable of further 
resistance, and more dead than alive, Guatamozin became 
a captive. Our historians, as usual, have misconceived 
the statement of Cortez, and construed the retreat of Guar 
tamozin to his canoe as an attempt at flight. They con- 
found an act of heroic resistance, carried to the extreme 
of human endurance, with a desire to escape the death he 
coveted. Had our youthful hero meditated flight, he might 
have effected it long before under the cover of darkness. 
But he had chosen to die with his people, and when 
driven to the water, sat, as is the Indian's wont, silently 
awaiting the pleasure of his enemy. Suicide, among them, 
is considered an act of cowardice. It should be so every- 
where, but the pale faces do not always possess an Indian's 
power of endurance. Thus this Indian youth reminds 
us of the heroes of Grecian fable, in his proud choice of 
death, by a slow and torturing process, rather than sub- 
mission to a foreign master. 

Guatamozin did not misjudge his enemy. He knew the 
tortures in reserve, and though his captor spoke kindly to 
him, he begged as a favor to be despatched forthwith by 
the dagger. " He laid his hand on a poniard that I wore. 



506 TORTURING OF THE PRISONERS. 



telling me to strike him to the heart,"* says Cortez. This 
occurred on the 13th day of August, 1521 ; just seventy- 
five days from the commencement of the siege on the 
30th day of May. The next step in this barbaric war 
was the treatment of the prisoners. Cruelty is not pecu- 
liar to Indians ; it has prevailed among all nations whose 
hearts the Gospel has not softened. We find scenes of 
this sort upon the walls of the palace of Sennacherib, the 
great King of Assyria ;-j- and the Indian allies of Cortez 
would hardly have submitted to the omission of this 
ancient custom. From the commencement of the cam- 
paign of Tepiaca, the war had been carried on strictly 
according to the Indian system. Many tribes had been 
exterminated, against whom it was waged, but the Aztecs 
had suffered most of all, since their famous city was now 
effectually blotted out, with all the attendant cruelties of 
such a conclusion. Now to omit the torture of those who 



* Folsom's Cortez, page 331. tray the results of a religious war, 

t We can judge what were the against those fanatical enemies of 

punishments inflicted upon cities, in idolatry, afterwards known as the 

early times, that held out to the last Persians. But the tortures inflicted 

extremity, from the tortures inflicted after a protracted siege, could not 

on the inhabitants of Rabbah (Chron. have been much less cruel. 

XX. 3), David being doubtless more We have Alexander crucifying two 

merciful than the heathen that were thousand of the principal inhabitants 

around about him. of Tyre. 

In the representation of the cap- The torture of prisoners of war, is 

ture of cities portrayed on the walls no peculiar Indian cruelty. It is only 

of the palace of Sennacherib, there is part and parcel of that devilish spirit 

always introduced the king, seated out of which war originates, 

in state, passing judgment on the in- Where the gospel has penetrated, 

habitants. this fiendish peculiarity of war is mi- 

The representation of tearing out tigated ; but everywhere else it is in 

the tongues, flaying alive, and im- full force. 
paling, is evidently intended to por- 



MOTIVE NOT UNDERSTOOD IN SPAIN. 



507 



had held out to the last, would not have been tolerated j 
of the chiefs especially. Policy, too, required it in order 
to strike such terror that all would henceforth submit 
without resistance.* Besides the boy emperor, doubtless 
his council passed the same ordeal. The humbler class 
most likely were despatched by bull-dogs, as represented 
in a very coarse painting in the Mexican Museum.-j- 

The writer of Bernal Diaz, in his ignorance, takes it 
for granted that torture was applied to Guatamozin, not 
as a punishment, but to extort confession. An absurdity 



* " Seeing the many and constant 
expenses of your Majesty up to this 
time, and that we ought to increase 
the rents [revenues] by every means 
before we add to them ; and seeing 
also the great length of time that we 
have been engaged in these wars, 
and the wants and necessities to 
which we have all been exposed, and 
the delay that must arise before the 
commands of your Majesty are known ; 
and above all, considering the great 
importunity of your Majesty's oflB- 
cials and all the Spaniards, and the 
impossibility of excusing myself to 
them, I was almost compelled to place 
the caciques [chiefs and sachems] 
and natives of the country in the 
hands of the Spaniards on account 
of the services they have rendered 
your Majesty here — and in the mean 
time some other arrangement may be 
hereafter made, or this confirmed, 
that the said caciques and natives 
may serve and yield to every Span- 
iard, to whose hands they are com- 
mitted, what is necessary for his 
support." — Folsom's Cortez, page 354. 

Thus were the benevolent schemes 



of Las Casas thwarted ; and all the 
tribes of New Spain (excepting the 
allies) reduced to slavery, in contempt 
of the emancipation ordinances. This 
is the most wholesale enslavement of 
Indians that ever took place. The 
cruelties perpetrated at Mexico, were 
a necessary preliminary to its con- 
summation. 

t " The two figures in the left-hand 
corner are Cortez and Dona Marina, 
as the mottoes above indicate. Marina 
holds a rosary in her hand, while the 
Marquis appears to be in the act of 
speaking and perhaps giving order 
for the execution represented beneath, 
where a Spaniard is seen in the act of 
loosening a blood-hound, who springs 
at the throat of an Indian. In the 
original copy all the colors are given. 
The hair of the victim is erect with 
horror, his eyes and mouth, are dis- 
tended, and his throat is spotted with 
blood, as the fangs and claws of the 
ferocious beast are driven through his 
flesh." — Brantz Mayer's Mexico As 
It Was and As It Is, New York, 1844, 
page 100. 



508 RESULT OF CORTEZ' POLICY, 



when applied to an Indian who accounts it heroism to 
endure, but never to yield. To Spaniards ignorant of their 
character, this would be incomprehensible. The fiction of 
the royal treasurer, demanding the torture of Guatamozin 
to discover hidden riches, must have been invented in 
Spain, after it became known that he had been subjected 
to the question. The method, too, was Spanish — soaking 
the feet in oil and then scorching them in the fire — a de- 
cided refinement on Indian cruelty. In Spain it would 
be understood as Diaz reports. So little reliance was 
there then on unforced evidence, that the torture had be- 
come a part of its legal machinery — the common means 
of discovering truth. 

It remains only to consider the results of this system, 
commenced and carried out in contempt of Las Casas and 
the new ordinances. The changes sikilfully rung on the 
charges of rebellion, apostasy, cannibalism, and human 
sacrifice, seem completely to have foiled the good man in 
his efforts at restraint. A philanthropist has but a poor 
chance to be heard, when combating the hero of a suc- 
cessful war. Cortez understood the world better than his 
virtuous adversary, and knew well that the successful 
termination of his expedition cured it of all its irregulari- 
ties. A victory over the Aztecs was also a victory over 
Las Casas, and all others; and in this he judged rightly. 

It had been foreseen that all the other tribes, inhabit- 
ing the Anahuac, would accept the iron yoke of slavery, 
as soon as the Aztecs were crushed. The torture of 
Guatamozin and his braves was thus but a necessary part 
of the conclusion. It was the most politic course to be 



EXAGGERATIONS REDUCED TO REALITY. 509 



adopted, though hkewise the most devilish. But there is 
no reason to suppose the " Great Marquis" naturally cruel. 
He belonged rather to that rare class with whom results 
are alone considered ; in whom no sentiments of humanity 
are allowed to conflict with their schemes of interest. 
We may shudder at the sacrifice of life, and at the vast 
amount of misery inflicted, but the end vindicated his 
wisdom ; as that country was not again involved in war, 
except on the border, for the long period of three hundred 
years. 

The superstition in which Cortez was educated, left 
little for the conscience to effect, either in vindication of 
truth or in the restraint of crime. Indeed, in his day, 
torture was as legitimate an engine of Spanish supersti- 
tion as of Indian war ; but applied for a different purpose. 
The adoration of the Queen of Heaven was an imjDcrfect 
substitute for the fear of God. And as that superstition 
flourished, so did truth and public morality decline, until 
they shrank to abstract ideas. Had Cortez stated the 
simple truth, he could hardly have been comprehended. 
No one was expected to use it when it could be avoided. 
"We have found him exact in all that related to military 
affairs, though subjected to the closest criticism. It is 
only when he speaks of the multitude of his enemies, and 
his allies, that he assumes the language of exaggeration. 
When he discourses of the court and capital of Monte- 
zuma, he describes Grenada. In this none were deceived 
but those unacquainted with the magniloquent language 
of Spain. The baptismal record states the number sub- 
jected to that ordinance in a single year at six thousand. 



olO CORTEZ ONE OF THE GREAT MEN OF HIS AGE. 



And as emigration from surrounding tribes about supplied 
the place of the slaughtered Aztecs, we may safely esti- 
mate the population of the valley at that number on the 
arrival of Cortez. All above was most probably ficti- 
tious. The Mexicans had their allies as well as the 
Spaniards, and the fighting men within the city were not 
all Aztecs.* Its supposed impregnability induced many to 
take refuge there; so that an extraordinary multitude 
may have been assembled within it at the time of the 
siege. As there are no laws of exaggeration, so there can- 
not be any uniform rule of discount by which to bring the 
statements back to truth. We have tried occasionally to 
do so, but the sum remaining has been ever too large for 
credibility, and we have had to leave the numbers in- 
definite. 

Not only was Cortez one of the remarkable characters 
of an age of great men ; he would have been distinguished 
in any. He warred at the same time against the policy 
of his own government, the Council of the Indias, its pet 
governor of Cuba, and the Protector of the Indians, and 
triumphed over all when he vanquished his savage foes. 
At the age of twenty-five, with scarce six years of experi- 
ence, he was more thoroughly conversant with Indian 
policy, and Indian methods, than those exhibited whose 
lives have been passed on the frontier. The struggle 
terminated, he settled down on his estates as the marquis 

* " We gave the more credit to this of Matalcingo — concerning which we 

account, because, for a few days past, had little information, except that it 

every time we entered the city for a was extensive, and about twenty-two 

hostile purpose we had encountered leagues from our quarters." — Fol- 

some of the people of the province som's Cortez, page 303. 



CORTEZ ECLIPSED BY PIZARRO. 511 



of the valley of Wah-hah-cah, Oajaca, but he was not 
satisfied. To the gift of this extensive district, with its 
inhabitants, the emperor had added that of Caernavaca 
for a residence; a spot claimed to be another earthly 
Paradise. Every sensual desire was satisfied; but he 
found also that happiness does not consist in the gratifica- 
tion of the appetites only. And never having learned to 
elevate his thoughts or affections above them, he soon 
became satiated with these enjoyments, and sought re- 
lief from an insupportable ennui in new enterprises. He 
undertook to explore the gold fields of California. The 
northerly winds of the Pacific baffled his endeavors, and 
the cross seas of the Gulf of California wrecked his vessels, 
and he not only returned without discovering the El 
Dorado of his hopes, but with a diminished prestige. 
Whether his sail was directed towards the present gold 
field, or whether it was the northern limits of Sonora, can- 
not now be determined. We know only that the exjDedi- 
tion was unfortunate. 

In Europe he was alike unsuccessful. He accompa- 
nied the emperor in his fearful Algerine campaign ; and 
being compelled to swim, in order to escape to the boats, 
he lost from his person, in the sea, he said, the crown 
jewels he pretended to have taken from Montezuma ! 
The many attempts to discover new empires to conquer 
were all abortive, and involved him in pecuniary embar- 
rassments. The world is hardly wide enough to afford 
more than one theatre to each hero. If he reaches the^ 
zenith early, and lives to a ripe age, it must be with 
decreasing glory. The world loves variety even in its 



512 THE YOUTHFUL HERO GUATAMOZIN. 



stars. Eacli new one, as it culminates, appears to surpass 
its predecessors in brilliancy to eyes wearied with their 
monotony. Cortez was no exception to this rule. The 
world was tired of his fame, when his cousin Pizarro 
turned its gaze io another hemisphere ; and his star 
found itself eclipsed before its proper noon. 

But the Conquest furnished more than one hero. If 
the assault of the city displayed the prowess of Cortez, 
its defence showed that of another equally brilliant. An 
Indian youth of eighteen, for ninety-seven successive days 
baffled all the efforts of a great soldier, backed by the 
inventions of civilized man. An Indian town, hardly 
deserving the name of city, was long held with no better 
weapons than bows, arrows, and flint-pointed spears, with 
alternate success, in open contests, day by day, against 
steel swords, and mail-clad men.* And it fell at last 
less from the weapons of the enemy, than the irresistible 
force of famine. Its defender refused to yield even then, 
and was captured only after he and the warriors who 
surrounded him had become helpless. Subjected to the 
torture, his enemies admit he bore it without a murmur. 
If he survived, it was because even savage hate had 
then become satisfied, and policy required his preserva- 
tion. Dragged in the train of the conqueror from place 
to place, he was felt at last a useless burden, and perished 
by a judicial murder, in the forests of Honduras. 

* Cotton mail, as it is called ; but impervious to Indian weapons. 



CHAPTER XY. 

A SUMMARY. 

Phoenician vestiges in the British Islands, 513— Probabilities of their crossing 
the Atlantic, 514 — Argument from analogy, 514 — Traditional knowledge 
of American colonies, 515 — Extinction of an exotic race, 516 — Decay of 
modern exotics, 517 — Our disappointment with others, 518 — Our faith 
shaken at Tlascala, 519 — Extinguished at Cholula, 520 — The argument 
from the brigantines, 521 — Time occupied in the siege explained, 521 — 
Mexican Empire doubtless a confederacy, 522 — Difference of thia from our 
own Indian wars, 522 — What the Mexicans really were, 523 — The conclu- 
sion, 524. 

A FEW words more, and we have done. However weak 
and inefficient some may deem our argument in support 
of a Phoenician origin of the Central American ruins, 
few, we believe, are prepared to deny the strong proba- 
bilities which uphold it. Even to this day, much of the 
worship and habits of Phoenicians is traceable in the 
holiday games of the common people of England, Scot- 
land, and Ireland. They have their Beltane fires, Beltavic 
dances, and other similar memorials of an age, a nation, 
and a religion so deeply buried in the past, that the period 
of their introduction defies the research of the antiquary 
— memorials of a once dominant race that have, ages 
since, disappeared. These few and disjointed fragments 
of a colossal power, seeing the many changes that have 
taken place there, show how deeply rooted was that super- 
stition of which they are the poor remains. 

33 (513J 



514 THE TRANSIT OF THE ATLANTIC PROBABLE. 



If SO vast a fabric could not only be erected on the 
shores of these islands — situated in a stormy sea, and 
distant almost as far as our continent from the parent 
state — ^but the teachings of its priesthood also be spread 
so widely, and rooted so deeply as to resist the Druidism 
of the Celts, the newer polytheism of the Romanists, and 
even modern Protestantism, what is there, we say, so 
strange in our argument, if these things be true ? Some 
chance sail, some storm-driven mariner from the Canaries, 
the Azores, or the group off the great African cape, may 
have been the first to visit the Bahamas — carried thither 
by the trades — and thence to penetrate the mysteries of 
our great inland sea. In this, there would be nothing 
beyond the ordinary course of events — kindred accidents 
occur daily. The road once found, every difficulty van- 
ishes. To return, and to review the new land, would be 
but a light task to the enterprise of the Tartessians. To 
settle upon the shores of the Gulf — or Caribbean Sea — a 
question of profit merely. 

That a close analogy in the worship of Phoenicia and 
Uxmal existed cannot be doubted ; there is that identity 
in the monuments of both sides the ocean, and those 
analogies in their emblems and minor resemblances which 
equally point to a common foundation. If, after the same 
lapse of time, and could it be possible, under similar cir- 
cumstances, a wanderer from this side should unveil, in 
the majestic shadows of European forests on their several 
sites, the great religious edifices of Rome, London, and 
Glasgow, would he not, despite the differences of arrange- 
ment, the nakedness of some, the florid ornament of 



TRADITIONS OF THE ATLANTIDES. 515 



others, see at once their common origin and common use ? 
In this view many minor difficulties disappear. 

The chief stumbling-block remains : if these buried 
cities are the vestiges of Phoenician settlements, once 
centres of population and marts of trade, how are we to 
account for their abandonment ? By what strange acci- 
dent of fate were they severed, not only from the parent 
state but from the memory of mankind ? In the deep 
night that hangs upon this question, who may answer? 
We can only say, the memories of these transatlantic 
realms were not entirely forgotten. From the days of 
their European severance to the days of Columbus, the 
story of their existence was preserved in the fable of the 
" Hesperian Gardens," and the " Islands of the Blessed." 
These western worlds, indeed, had a far firmer hold upon 
mankind than the form and fruitfulness of Africa retained; 
the voyage or voyages of Pharaoh-Necho or Hanno being 
only preserved as a misty dream in the minds of a few 
cosmographers, while the actual existence of the Atlan- 
tides was a popular belief. 

It cannot be that the native races, found by the early 
Spanish voyagers, were either the founders or descendants 
of the founders of those vast piles beside which they 
dwelt. They knew nought of them or their builders — 
they pretended to no such knowledge. To the semi- 
nomad of those tropical shores they were as mythical as 
to the wondering European. And on this is a most im- 
portant point — the carved figures are not American in 
their cast of features. This peculiarity points to a 



516 THE EXTINCTION OF AN EXOTIC RACE. 



foreign source. Wherever the white has trodden upon 
this continent, from the extreme north to the extreme 
south, from Boothia to Tierra del Fuego, there is one uni- 
versal type, which varies even less than that of any other 
known race. 

What occasioned the fall and extirpation of this foreign 
element is another matter of serious inquiry. So far as 
our knowledge of the ancient races of the older con- 
tinents runs, we find, by the concurrent testimony of 
hieroglyphics, medals, and statues, the same types of 
mankind to exist now as in the earliest periods. The 
Berber is the Mauritanian, the Basque the Iberian. Caesar's 
description of the fiery and changeable Gaul is a portrait 
of the modern Frenchman, and the German of Tacitus the 
counterpart of the Teuton of to-day. By some strange, un- 
known, and inexplicable law, it would appear that the dif- 
ferent races of mankind were confined to appointed places. 
The creation of a mixed race is rendered impossible by 
another, which annuls their procreative capacity. Thus, 
from these premises, would follow the certain extinction 
of any exotic nationality on this continent, if separated 
even but a short time from its native hive. And this, as 
we have stated in our past pages, is the fate to which the 
mighty cities of the south succumbed. Unsupported by 
a steady infusion of fresh blood, climatic influences over- 
bore them, until the remnant either wasted and went out 
as a lamp from the exhaustion of its oil, or were swept 
from the earth in some furious assault of the surrounding 
natives. There is manifestly some common cause that 



DECAY OF MODERN EXOTICS. 5l7 



works so uniformly.* In Central America the pure Spanish 
race is all but extinct, in Paraguay it may be said to be 
perfectly so, and in Mexico it is steadily declining. The 
same fact holds good in Peru and Equador. In our own 
country various causes have been assigned for the recog- 
nised delicacy, which is steadily advancing in what may 
be called the pure American. The growing smallness of 
the hands and feet, the shortening of the jaw-bones, the 
diminution in the number of the teeth and their rapid 
decay, are matters of daily comment. But it is not 
equally well known that a like change is to be observed 
in the colonies of Great Britain, not only in her South 
African dependencies, but even already in the newer out- 
posts of Australia. In the West Indies, the hardiest 
white race melts away in two or three generations, while 
the climate of Central Africa is so decidedly adverse as to 
forbid the children of the north even a temporary foot- 
hold. In these uniform consequences the most obtuse 
cannot fail to recognise the operation of a universal law, 
whose primary effects are to diminish migration, and 
whose ultimate results are the extinction of the exotic 
population. 

* The reader is, doubtless, familiar quarter being again free from ice, 
with the story of the Danish settle- the Danes sent out an exploring ex- 
ments on the coast of Greenland, in pedition, ■which succeeded in finding 
the tenth century. How they flourish- the locality of the long-lost settlement, 
ed — builded churches and public edi- The ruins of churches and other 
fices — and after some generations a edifices were found, and all the usual 
flow of ice cut off all communication evidences of a once flourishing settle- 
for centuries, and that intercourse ment of civilized men. But not a 
was never renewed after the sea living vestige of the ancient colony 
" opened." could be discovered. All had perish- 
In 1836, however, the sea in that ed, perhaps centuries before. 



518 OUR DISAPPOINTMENT WITH OTHERS, 



That the histories of Mexico, upon which we have so 
freely commented, are but gross and utterly unfounded 
exaggerations, we have repeatedly proved. The ruined 
cities of Yucatan, possibly suggested to the imagination 
of the Great Captain the enormous fictions which disfigure 
his despatches. And be it always remembered that these 
despatches, and the work of Gomora, are the only original 
documents touching the conquest of Mexico, its people, its 
civilization, its difiiculties, and its dangers. Whatever 
else we possess is but a rifaccimento of these two. There 
are no other sources from whence to collect and collate. 
The picture writings were the worthless inventions of a 
subsequent age, so coarsely fabulous, so transparently an 
imposture, as to be equally unworthy of credit or examina- 
tion. We were driven by this curious chain of incidents 
to examine the physical condition of the country whose 
history we had undertaken to write. Fresh from the 
burning pages of Prescott, whose splendid imagery and 
glowing periods must enchant every reader, we stepped 
upon the shore of Mexico, only to find how the dream- 
land of our heated brain differed from the Mexico of 
reality. The effect of this disenchantment we have faith- 
fully reproduced for our readers ; and if in the course of 
these pages we have struck down many a cherished myth, 
let each loser remember also we have experienced the 
same regret and suffered to the same extent. 

While we lingered around the tropical profusion, which 
adorns the roadway to the mountains that enclose the 
table-land, we could hardly turn from its sea of verdure 
and flowers to hazard a question. But once on the semi- 



OUR FAITH SHAKEN AT TLASCALA. 519 



sterile plateau, all was changed — the howling wilder- 
ness where Gomora had located legions — Tlascala begirt 
with an interior ridge. Whence, suggested the first 
glance at this very uninviting region, came the necessary 
support of the millions who are said to haA^^e held sway 
here ? No agricultural skill could have forced from the 
ungrateful soil a tithe of the amount they required to 
exist ; nor could the mountains have yielded sufficient 
food, though they had teemed with animal life like the 
South African plains, in the periods of the migrations of 
the antelope. Physically, the stories of the past were 
false ; and where was the vallum, and the solid wall of 
miles in length ? No volcano had burst forth here, no 
earthquake had shaken it into fragments ; and if it had, 
those fragments must still exist, cumbering the ground, 
or built into newer structures. Or, 

" The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, 
And these are of them." 

It was not to be admitted by any possibility, by any 
faith having the guidance of reason, that these magnifi- 
cent creations could have had any other existence than 
the vaunting fancy of Cortez and his chaplain. Thus 
fell one stone of the edifice, and the key of the mythical 
arch, which we had so long received as history. 

If this unlooked for condition of the country had 
surprised us, the aspect of Cholula shook our faith into 
a heap of dust. The lofty pyramid of hewn stone 
still upheld some futile hopes. They who had erected 
that massive pile, could not be classed Avith the savage 



520 



CHOLULA EXTIiSTGUISHES IT. 



inhabitants of those dry and arid plains. Mexico in its 
glory might yet have been, and our judgment must be 
restrained. We entered Cholula. We hastened to the 
great pyramid, the al;pha and the omega of our doubts. 
The mist passed away. Before us was a large cone, 
such as still exist in Illinois, Ohio, and Indiana.* It was 
nothing more, saving that its sides were clothed in rich 
shrubbery, and a chapel covered its crest ; we were in a 
tropical country and a Eomish land, and the erection 
was to the honor of the Virgin, " Queen of Heaven." 
These were the only differences. From that moment 
our task was a simple one. All credence in the relations 
of previous historiographers being annihilated,^ w^e had to 



* We clip the following item from 
a Western journal, to show that the 
custom oi mound-sepulture is not local, 
but universal among the tribes. 

"The Leavenworth (Kansas) City 
Ledger, of October 25th, announces 
the death and burial of a young 
Indian chief, son of To-he. He was 
placed in a sitting posture, upon the 
summit of a high hill ; his bow and 
arrow, a war-club, and a pipe, depo- 
sited near him, when a pony was shot 
to accompany him to the happy hunt- 
ing-grounds. A mound of earth was 
then thrown over the whole, a white 
flag raised, and the usual charms 
placed around to keep away evil 
spirits. The young chief was not 
more than twelve years of age." 

f Many of our readers may be 
startled at the deliberate charge of 
forgery we have made in connection 
with the standard chroniclers. Such 
should recollect that we are discours- 



ing not about an Anglo-Saxon country 
or people, but about Spaniai'ds and 
Spanish-Americans — among Avhom 
forgery is a crime shockingly com- 
mon. Where a whole category of 
miracles rests on forged evidence, sus- 
tained, perhaps, by perjury, it is not 
remarkable that such priestly prac- 
tices should infect secular affairs. 
Persons familiar with the state of 
those countries are not moved at the 
discovery of even forged cebulas of the 
king, after they have for years stood 
the ordeal of judicial decisions ; and 
Avhile I write, the community is 
startled at the detection of wholesale 
Mexican forgeries of California land- 
titles that had repeatedly passed the 
ordeal of the American courts. There 
may be, and doubtless are, occasional 
adjudications of a bishop in favor of a 
forged bequest or grant to the church 
or its ministers, on the testimony o;' 
the confessor of a dying penitent. But 



THE ARGUMENT FROM THE BRIGANTINES. 521 



search for the solution of their elaborate fictions, in the 
features of the country itself, and, from whatever frag- 
ments of the past could be collected, to reproduce its 
picture truthfully. 

Faithfully we have labored at the work. Had our eyes 
never dwelt upon the lakes of the great, valley of Mexico, 
the ways that lead into it assured us that no such struc- 
tures as brigantines, accepting the terra to mean vessels of 
three feet draft, could ever have been transported, even 
in sections, by such wild and broken roads as they even 
now must be borne along. If that were not enough, when 
we beheld the broad and marshy ponds of the valley, 
which it has been the fashion to dignify as lakes, the 
proof became complete. For, granting the building and 
transport of the so-called brigantines, the naked fact re- 
mained, they could not have floated in the shallow water 
for which they were designed. To fulfil both the re- 
quirements of the case, these vessels must have been 
broad and shallow, such as we have described them, and 
such as navigate to-day the canals and marshes of the 
valley. To move such constructions to their destination 
was still no ordinary task; and the skill and conduct 
evinced in their creation and transit elevate Cortez far 

from the facilities offered by these were found ready to swear to the 

one-sided proceedings for fraudulent genuineness of their signatures, and 

practices, all similar adjudications are it was only in the forgery of the 

regarded by many as mere legal rob- official seal that the fraud was de- 

beries. Thus the community is fami- tected. 

liarized with a crime, or at least with What is true in secular affairs is 

a criminal accusation, which has a true in their literature. To determine 

most deleterious effect on public mo- which is untrue and which is genuine, 

rals. In the California case before requires the most rigid application of 

us, the highest Mexican ex-officials the laws of evidence. 



522 TIME OCCUPIED IN THE SIEGE. 



above the ordinary leaders of such a force as was gathered 
under his banner. 

Once master of the lakes, and this his fleet of chaloupes 
instantly gave him, Mexico was at the feet of the invader. 
How came it, it may well be asked, then, that its fall was 
so long delayed ? The reply is clear and decisive — the 
superiority of the Spaniards in numbers and arms was 
barely sufficient, even under the skilful guidance of a 
leader, trained in all the wiles of savage warfare, to cast 
the balance in their favor. It is but a few years since we 
saw some thousands of half-armed Caffres, with but a few 
muskets among them, ill trained in their use, chiefly 
armed with clubs {knoh-herries) and assagaies, resist for 
over two years a well-appointed army of many British 
regiments.* There is not, therefore, any cause of surprise 
at the long struggle which preceded the fall of the city. 
That the Spaniards succeeded at all, with the paucity of 
means at their command, is sufficiently wonderful, 
without outraging all probability, by evoking the 
enormous array they are said to have finally overthrown. 

We have little doubt, could we disentangle thoroughly 
that meshwork of fact and fiction, called the despatches 
of Cortez, we should find the fabled empire of Montezuma 
a confederacy, like that of the Iroquois and Hurons. The 
position of Mexico in the temperate region {tierra templadd) 
of the tropics must, however, have greatly modified the 
habits of its people ; they were probably more agricultural 

* The long-protracted war with the equally protracted one with those of 
Indians of the Northwest, soon after the Everglades of Florida, are cases 
the ximerican Revi lution, and the in point. 



MEXICAN EMPIRE A CONFEDERACY. 52i 



and less nomadic than our northern tribes. We do not in- 
tend to detract from the darino; character of this famous ex- 
pedition, which exemplifies so accurately the peculiarities 
of the people of Spain of that period, remarkable for an 
overweening self-reliance and desperate tenacity ; and if 
we did, our own history would be its refutation. What 
five hundred Anglo-Saxons would have thus thrown them- 
selves into the heart of the Iroquois confederacy, and so 
doing, have achieved as great a triumph ? Step hy step, 
and year by year, we have waged war against the red 
race; our triumph has been slow, but sure; they, the 
Spaniards, won it almost in an hour, and remained, in 
the midst of the conquered, the masters of submissive 
slaves. We have left none to crush with the fetter ; the 
dead alone are behind and beneath; before us is only a 
broken band, whom our fast-advancing numbers will 
speedily thrust into the ocean. 

No such government as Cortez pretends to have found 
could have existed without ample means of intercommuni- 
cation, without a currency, without a literature, and with- 
out a written law. Now it is not pretended that any of 
these were found ; and even the polity of the state, what- 
ever its peculiarities were, is rather hinted at than de- 
fined. If more be needed to confirm the view we have 
taken, it may be found in the fact that Mexico itself, like 
Cholula and Tlascala, has no buildings or fragments of 
buildings anterior to the conquest, nor, excepting those 
which we claim as Phoenician, throughout the entire con- 
tinent north and south. The lapse of years is utterly 
insufficient to account for this, and could not be pleaded 



524 CONCLUSION. 



with reason in face of those vast erections which remain 
to us yet, hke the sepulchral statues of a buried empire. 
The structures, the cities, and the numbers of the Mexican 
people were probably then but little superior to those 
which once surrounded us — different they undoubtedly 
were, and superior also, from their more fixed character 
and habits. But they were thoroughly Indian still. 

That Mexico was rich in gold admits of but little doubt. 
Being always found native, and abounding in its rivers, it 
was likely to be gathered and applied to the common pur- 
poses of savage ornaments. But the great metallic wealth 
of the country has been worked out by Spanish skill. 
The native Mexican could never have discovered in the 
rocky ores the glitter of the silver bar; and could he 
have done so, he had no tools by which to reach the 
coveted prize. We dismiss, then, these pages to the 
reader, and if our sagacity has not greatly misled us, we 
think he will be satisfied also, as we have, of the apocry- 
phal nature of those works, which, hitherto, he has re- 
ceived for truth. 



CONCLUSION. 
We have now accomplished oux- allotted task. Others before us have, in 
good faith, undertaken the same work, but, unfortunately, they sought at the 
wrong repository for their materials. There is such a pleasure in labor, we 
almost regret that ours is ended. Hardships have joys mingled with them ; 
and perils, whether on land or at sea, or among robbers, have been succeeded 
by the gratification derived from an escape. A solitary, unarmed traveller, 
leaving a disabled steamer in the " South Sea," found his way to the city of 
Mexico alone — the companion of peasants, the associate of arrieros. The 
novelty of such a journey more than compensated for its hardships, even to 
one inured to life on the borders of civilization. It was the beginning of a 



CONCLUSION. 525 



series, necessary to qualify the author for his task. For how could a man 
write a history of the Conquest who had endured less? who was less fami- 
liar with the ground ? less familiar with Spaniards ? less familiar with the 
Indian race? less familiar with the topography of the country?* 

We have no fault to find with the monks, who wrote historic romances to 
illustrate the doctrines of Romanism, and drew their dramatis persons from 
an Indian war. But we do object to having Spanish fictions turned into 
American history. As the survivor of a family that, for generations, had 
lived in the territory of the Iroquois, enjoj'ing their protection and their 
friendship, it was a sacred duty to defend them and others of their race from 
the libels of centuries. But this was not enough ; it had been done again 
and again already, to no purpose. The anxiety to have a history of the Con- 
quest of Mexico was so great, that one after another would resort to these 
exploded fables for the materials of a history. The ink was hardly dry on 
the leaves of the North American Quarterly, which contained the exposure 
of these fictions, when another contributor to the same periodical, Mr. Pres- 
cott, began his history, founded on authors already denounced as fabulous by 
so high an authority as the Hon. Lewis Cass. So little do even literary men 
notice the refutations of romantic falsehoods ! Who has not listened with 
wonder to that absurd showman's tale, of the " Aztec children ;" yet, who 
ever remembered its refutation, or read the report of the legal proceedings 
by which the father acquired possession of his idiot ofispring ? These well- 
known traits demonstrated the necessity, not only of again refuting these 
fables, but also of compiling an actual history of the Conquest, that hereafter 
there should be no occasion again to disturb the moles and the bats, in order 
to gratify public curiosity. 

The work may not justify, according to the American standard, the expeu- 

* In the language of a new work cal economy ; another knowing no- 

which has just made its appearance, thing of law ; another nothing of 

we may sum up our objections to ecclesiastical changes of opinion ; 

each and every of the historians we another neglecting the philosophy 

have had to consult in writing our of statistics, and another physical 

narrative. sciences — although these topics are 

" Historians, taken as a body, the most essential of all, inasmuch as 

have never recognised the necessity they comprise the principal circum- 

of such a wide and preliminary study stances by which the temper and 

as would enable them to grasp their character of mankind have been 

subject in the whole of Its natural re- affected, and in which they ai-e dis- 

lations. Hence the singular fact of played." — History of Civilization in 

one historian being Ignorant of politi- England, page 3. 



526 COXCLUSION. 



diture of time and trial it has cost. But there is even a higher consideration 
than that of dollars. The scrofula that invades the aboriginal constitution, 
so soon as the vrhite race plants itself beside the native, does not always 
spare the intruder. As in the instance before us, a single tombstone records 
the names of fourteen members of a single family ; while a niche remains to 
be filled with that of the survivor, the author. To such an one, health is 
dearer than money ; and a vagabond life in distant countries, and amid diver- 
sified climates, the only antidote for an hereditary consumption. To him 
death has perils but in a single form, and he unhesitatingly ventures where 
in other men it would be temerity. He can contemplate death on the deck 
of a foundering ship, as a familiar topic. When, in a tropical fever, he is 
pronounced incurable, there is the consolation of knowing that the summons 
has not come in the hated form. Again, when assured the dreaded malady 
was at last certain to complete its work, a new journey has stayed its pro- 
gress, while a ghostly form and a death-like visage has been a passport 
AA'here other men would not venture. These are considerations, beside 
money, that have lightened our task. 

Educated in a system of " godliness," may we call it, ever unpopular with 
the world, and taught to look to it as the only solution of political and social 
evils, we are, at every step, in conflict with the monk, and the popular histo- 
rian. From a different point of view every fact of history is contemplated, 
every result is weighed. There is no deification of chance, no Red Republic- 
anism. If Spanish religion has often been referred to, it is because it was 
inevitable ; the very idea of history with Spaniards, seems to have been but 
an exhibition of the prowess of their demigods. "We have found Bernal Diaz 
a faithful exponent of that religious system, as understood by its highest 
ecclesiastical authorities ; and if we have placed it, from time to time, in jux- 
taposition to our own, it is that the Protestant reader might better understand 
the motives that swayed those authors in the fabrication of their narratives. 
They should all be endorsed " historical expositions of the religion of Spain, 
with fables to match." Farewell. 



INDEX. 



Acapulco, city of, 125,- its commerce with 
India the Spice Islands, and Philipines, 
126; its commercial condition, 126; the 
author's journey from, 126. 

Acayucan, from whence comes cocoa, 117. 

Aculman village in alliance with Cortez, 
467. 

Adventurers attracted by Cortez' first de- 
spatch, 478. 

Aezahualcoyotl the Magnificent, 50 ; 
adornments of his palace, 50 ; plays the 
part of David in Uriah, 52; a religious 
reformer, 54 ; a poet, 54 ; translation 
from his alleged poems, 55 ; his pretend- 
ed capital rivals Bagdad, 50 ; provides 
accommodations for the sovereigns of 
Mexico and Tacuba, 52. 

Alaman, Don Lucas, notice of, 104. 

Algonquins melted away in spite of the 
favor of the French, 35. 

Allies' fabulous numbers reduced, 489. 

Aloe (century plant, or maguey), 120. 

Alvarado sent back to Cuba with gold, 302 ; 
comes to relief of Cortez (Tobasco), 320 ; 
slaughters the Mexicans, 402 ; with Leon 
covers the night retreat, 410 ; escapes 
by leaping, 411 ; assigned to Tacuba in 
the siege, 479 ; defeat of, 495 ; and San- 
doval, witness the cruel execution of the 
Spanish prisoners, 499. 

Amaqueracan or Amaquemacan village 
near Chalco, 387. 

American colonies (ancient), traditional 
knowledge of, 515. 

Analogies, Egyptian, 146 ; Phoenician re- 
capitulation of, 162. 

Analogy, argument from, 514. 



Ancient Americans not Egyptian, 145. 

Ancient American ruins, 285. 

Ancient magnetic cross, 152. 

Ancient nations, era of their prosperity, 
166. 

Ancient ships unknown to Greeks or Ro- 
mans, 175. 

Antiquity, Greek ignorance of, 170 ; a 
retrospect of, 165. 

Antiquity of Central American ruins, 145 ; 
a retrospect of, 165. 

Apam, plains of, topography of, 454. 

Apology for Ferdinand, King, 273. 

Apology of Cordova — returning from Yuca- 
tan, 288. 

Apostle Thomas's visit to America fabu- 
lous, 25. 

Arabs, our indebtedness to, 261 ; progress 
of learning among, 254 ; genius for arts 
of peace, 248 ; their fortifications, 261. 

Arianism, cause of its decline, 236. 

Ashteroth, her emblem the Latin cross, 24. 

Astarte, or Ashteroth, worshipped at Nine- 
veh, 153. 

Astarte, Queen of Heaven, 153 ; our en- 
graving of an American goddess, recog- 
nised as Ashteroth, 160 ; her head dress 
the ancient mural crown — prototype of 
that of Diana of Ephesus, 160. 

Atlantic crossed, 277. 

Aztec law of succession, 62 ; foreign policy, 
123 ; dominion to the Pacific, 124; south- 
eastern provinces, 125 ; causeways, 459. 

Aztecs, their pretended Jewish origin, 37; 
their true origin, 38 ; their pretended co- 
venant with the devil, 39 ; where did the 
Monks get information about this ? 40 ; 
(527) 



528 



INDEX. 



were they the devil's peculiar people ? 39 ; 
their arrival in the valley of Mexico, 41 ; 
their first settlement in that valley, 42 ; 
their federative system, 61; their alleged 
theory of the flood, how proved, 24; 
specimen of their alleged picture writ- 
ing, 24; history rejects all inconsistent 
with Indian traits, 32 ; were Indians, 
not Arabs, 32 ; Indians of the California 
stock, 38 ; migration an ordinary in- 
stance, 41 ; first stop at Tlascala, 42 ; 
their first settlement at Tezcueo, 42 ; 
country — the table land of America — 
Chapter III., 109 ; its mountain scenery, 
109; an isolated country, 112; a country 
of silver, 112; once washed gold, 112; 
ceased to when they lost liberty, 112; 
struggle with Tlascalans to shut them 
in, 124; never could have understood 
the processes of silver mining, 133; 
incapable of the necessary combinations, 
134 ; silver mines require the applica- 
tion of gunpowder and steel, 134 ; 
slaughtered by Alvarado, 402; light 
watch fires on the approach of Cortez, 
444 ; resolve to die in defence of their 
capital, 464; routed at Xochimilco, 475. 
See Mexicans. 

Bahia de mala Pelea, or Bay of the Dis- 
asterous Battle [of Cordova] in Yucatan, 
288. 

Baptism administered to twenty Indian 
females to convert them to Romanism, 
323 ; converts eight more, granted to 
Cortez at Sempoalla, in like manner, 
342. 

Benefits resulting from revolt of Zimines 
and Pelagius, 266. 

Boturnini wrote 200 years after Diaz, 23 ; 
how he proves the visit of the Apostle 
Thomas to America, 45 ; notice of, 98 ; 
specimen picture writing, 101. 

Brigantines, building of (Chapter XII.), 
426 ; size of, 434 ; materials for, how 
prepared, 435 ; effect of their appear- 
ance, 462 ; transported to Tezcueo, 464 ; 
used in carrying an intrenchment, 489 ; 
argument from this use of, 521. 

Britain, tin of, carried to Tarshish, 151 ; 
Celts emigrate to, from Spain, 151; tin 
brought from, to Phoenicia, 165 ; tin of, 
at Nineveh, 166. 

Bronze tools and weapons, 163 ; supplanted 
by steel, 164; medallion at Palenque, 
160; bronze tools found at Mitla, 165. 



Bull, Papal, arrival of, 469. 
Bustamente, Don Carlos, notice of, 104. 

Canal built by Cortez, 477 ; its fabulous 
depth, 478. 

Canary Islands 3300 miles from America, 
175. 

Carthage, commonwealth of, 230. 

Carthaginians invited to Spain, 231 ; Spain 
under the, 231. 

Cass, Lewis, his criticism of Spanish 
authors, abridged, 27 ; his letter to the 
author, 30. 

Castilian race, origin and progress of 
(Chapter VII.), 265; decline of, 269. 

Causes of Indian extermination, 33. 

Cavalry, advantage of, to Cortez, 490. 

Celt-Iberians (Celts and Turdetani), 166. 

Celts emigrate to Britain from Spain, 152. 

Cempoal, an Indian village (Sempoalla), 
339. 

Censors of Spain, seven, 81. 

Central America, ancient, when at her 
zenith, 167 ; Mesopotamia, (fee, as pro- 
ductive now, 167 ; commerce, cause of 
the wealth of, 167; cause of early de- 
population of, 169 ; Americans had 
Roman lineaments, 174. 

Central American ruins, their antiquity, 
145 ; dense population of (ancient), 166 ; 
not Egyptian, 146. 

Central Americans, Egyptians in their 
obelisks, note (2) page 179 ; painted sta- 
tues, tablets, and plinths, notes (3) and 
(4), page 179 ; in their inscriptions, note 
(7), page 182; sculpture, note (5), page 
181 ; in their paintings, note (6), page 
181; in common emblems, note (8), page 
182; in their pyramids, note (9), page 
183 ; not less in dimensions, note (10), 
page 184; in the stone casing of pyra- 
mids, note (11), page 184; in excavated 
sepulchres, note (12), page 184; in cele- 
brating victory, note (13), page 185; and 
in approximations to the arch, note (14), 
page 185 : not Egyptians — in that they 
did not embalm their dead, note (16), 
page 186; in that their pyramids were 
not truncated, note (15), page 186 ; no 
sacred animals, note (17), page 186. 

Centviry plant, maguey {aloe), 120. 

Chalco pond, in valley of Mexico, its 
topography, 454 ; canal, its location — 
curious manner of its construction, 453 ; 
laguna, effect of increasing its volume, 
455; Sandoval's expedition to, 468. 



INDEX. 



529 



Character, Moorish, given to Indians, 84. 

Charles V., his favor sways the law of evi- 
dence, 82 ; effect of his favor on the 
seven censors of Spain, 81. 

Children, imperial, of Tezcuco, 51. 

Chinampas, artificial islands, foolishly 
called " floating gardens," 485. 

Cholula, author first set on inquiry at, 78 ; 
country of, at the foot of the volcano, 
123-; Cholula, 376 ; the city of, 379 ,• its 
political state, 380 ; simple truth about, 
380 ; the massacre at, 382 ; as described 
in note, 388 ; the fabulous Mecca of the 
Anahuac, 378 ; reconciled to Tlascala by 
Cortez, 386 ; extinguishes our faith, 520. 

Civilization, Greek, of oriental origin, 169. 

Civilization, of the Arabs, its influence on 
Europe, 257 ; of the Saracens, peculiar, 
237 ; fragments of Ancient American, 
174 ; traces of, first discovered, 283 ; 
how the idea of an Indian origin of, 
arose, 287 ; effect of the discovery of, 
290. 

Clavigero wrote 200 years after Diaz, 23 ; 
notice of, 103. 

Climate, its changes, 118. 

Cocoa comes from Acuyacan, 117. 

Codex, Vaticanus, No. 1556, index of a 
copy of the fabulous picture writing, 
91; Tellurianus, 91. 

Color more the effect of climate than of 
race, 37; of the Jews varies, 37. 

Columbus, Christopher, 271 ; his character, 
272 ; introduced by Quintanello, 273 ; 
derives benefits from him, 275 ; motives 
that sustained, 276 ; the trials and priva- 
tions of his first voyage, 277 ; the Indi- 
ans discovered by, 278 , returns success- 
ful, 282; chequered experience, 282. 

Commerce, effect of, on ancient nations, 
165. 

Commerce, Grecian, what it was, 167; 
Roman, what it was, 167 ; extinguished 
by war, 175 ; ships of, in times of Pha- 
raoh, 175. 

Commerce of Tarshish, 150 ; result of 
ancient, 166; ancient routes of, 166; 
probable causes of extinction of, 167. 

Controversy of Dominicans and Francis- 
cans benefits the Indians, 280. 

Cordova, expedition of, discovers Yucatan, 
283 ; his loss at the battle of Pontonchan, 
or Bay of the Unfortunate Battle, 288. 

Cordova, fabulous Mexico drawn from, 
258 ; caliphate of, 250 ; rapid growth of, 
251. 



Copan, its river wall, 161. 

Cortez, the Crusoe of Gomora, 22 ; author 
led to give greater weight to, 27 ; genius 
and character of mistaken, 25 ; not a 
Romish propagandist, 25 ; an adroit 
leader in Indian war, 25 ; object of his 
letters, 80 ; wrote without fear of contra- 
diction, 80; the Cid of Spanish historians, 
85 ; birth and parentage, 304 ; sails for 
the West Indies (1504), 305; life in the 
"West Indies, 306 ; in San Domingo, 306 ; 
becomes expert in hunting Indians, 308 ; 
removes to Cuba, 308 ; becomes leader 
of the malcontents, 308 ; found in bed 
with Velasquez, 308 ; marries, and is 
made an Alcalde, 308; is selected by 
Velasquez to lead an expedition, 309 : 
sails from the Havana after his departure 
is countermanded, 309 ; makes Cozumel 
Island, 309 ; is represented by Diaz as 
there playing the religious reformer, 
315 ; there preaching the adoration of the 
Madonna and her emblem, 316 ; the 
abominable idols of Diaz recognised as 
antique statues, 317 ; arrives at Tobasco, 
319 ; has there three battles with In- 
dians, 320 ; converts twenty female cap- 
tives by baptizing, 323 ; lands at Vera 
Cruz, 325 ; picture writing scene, 338 ; 
how made captain-general, 338 ; first 
letter, probable cause of the emperor 
suppressing it, 339; first Indian alliance, 
339 ; professes to the Indians to be an- 
other Don Quixote, 340; expedition 
against Tsinpazingo, 342 ; exhibits a 
touch of discipline, 342 ; firmly esta- 
blishes himself in the country, 343 ; 
forms matrimonial alliances with the 
Sempoallans, 343; reforms the religion 
of the Sempoallans, as Diaz pretends, 
344; sermon to the Sempoallans, 345; 
sends Paerto Gurrero and Montejo with 
presents and a letter to the emperor, 346; 
his letters, first printing done in Spain, 
347 ; letter, reception of, by the council 
of the Indias, 348 ; effect of on the young 
emperor, 348 ; effect of upon adventurers. 
478; attempts to capture a vessel coasting 
by his encampment, 348; vessels destroy- 
ed in a tornado, 349; begins his march to 
the interior, 361 ; his rapid movements 

, in Indian war, 352 ; when a reliable 
authority, 355 ; when not reliable, 355 : 
climbs the mountain barrier, 356 ; de- 
scription of Tlascala, 360 ; statements 
impossible, 362; campaign of Tlascala, 



530 



INDEX. 



368; first battle, 369; success in the 
Tlascalan war, 370 ; alliance with the 
Tlascalans, 371; reforms the Tlascalan 
religion, 372 ; preparation to march to 
Mexico, 386; enters the valley of Mexico, 
386 ; treaty with Tlascala kept invio- 
late, 367 ; receives $3000 in gold from 
Mexican ambassador in Tlascala, 372 ; 
sets out for Tlascalan capital, 372 ; holds 
up to the Tlascalans the Madonna and 
child, says Diaz — telling them she is our 
mediator, 373 ; reconciles Cholulans and 
Tlascalans, 386 ; enters the valley of 
Mexico, 387 ; enters the city with great 
ostentation, 395 ; Aztecs insincere in 
protestation of friendship, 394; fabulous 
description of the city, 395 ; enormity 
of his fiction, 395 ; gratifies the popular 
taste for the marvellous, 396 ; influences 
the architectural taste of the new build- 
ers of Mexico, 397 ; seizes Montezuma, 
400 ; policy disarranged by arrival of 
Narvaez, 402 ; marches against Narvaez, 
403 ; conquers Narvaez by bribery, 404; 
returns to Mexico, 405 ; is assailed in his 
quarters, 406 ; makes a night retreat, 
408 ; continues his retreat, 415 ; account 
of his retreat, 417 ; fights a battle at 
Otumba, 418 ; reaches Tlascala, 420 ; 
•' another Moses," says the Cardinal 
Archbishop Lorenzano, 418; determines 
to build a flotilla, 427 ; enslaves the 
Indians of Tepeaca, 429 ; founds a 
colony at Tepeaca {Seguridad de la 
Frontera), 430; brands his female cap- 
tives, 430 ; secures the mountain passes 
into the Mexican valley, 433 ; policy of, 
433 ; difiiculties he encounters in build- 
ing flotilla, 435 ; makes a reconuoissance, 
465; incidents of his march, 466; expedi- 
tion south of the lagnna8,4:70; makes war 
upon the mountain tribes, 472 ; captures 
Cuernavaca, 473 ; captures Xochimilco, 
474 ; second day at Xochimilco, 475 ; 
extends his reconuoissance to Tacuba, 
476; the caual built by, 477; its fabu- 
lous depth, 478 ; first despatch attracts 
adventurers, 478 ; musters and divides 
his forces for the siege, 479 ; places his 
land forces in position, 480 ; captures 
the Pinon from his brigantines, 480 ; 
first battle on the water, 482 ; effects a 
complete investment, 484 ; good faith to 
his allies, 471 ; captures Yantepec, Gilu- 
tipec, Cuernavaca, and Xochimilco, 474 ; 
narrowly escapes death at Xochimilco, 



474; success wonderful, but disfigured 
by fables, 436 ; how he obtained supplies 
and friends, 436 ; how he circumvented 
Las Casas, 437; how he justified hia 
enslavement of Indians, 438 ; muster of 
forces before leaving Tlascala, 442 ; com- 
mences his return to Mexico, 439 ; leads 
the van, 444 ; passage of the mountains, 
444; entry into Tezcuco — fortifies his 
quarters, 445 ; marches to Iztapalapa, 
446; entrapped at Iztapalapa — his night 
retreat, 446 ; how his statement becomes 
possible, 450 ; account of it, 450 ; why he 
invents the charge of cannibalism, 428 ; 
motive of his cruelty to the Tepeacans, 
429 ; inspirits the panic-stricken expedi- 
tion of Guaoahula, and leads it to suc- 
cess, 433; instals Don Fernando Lord 
of Tezcuco, 451 ; his afiection for his 
Indian protege, Fernando, 452 ; buried 
with Fernando, 452 ; selects Cuyocan 
for his head quarters in the siege, 
475; retreats, abandoning a cannon — 
battle renewed, 490 ; divides his flotilla, 
491 ; makes another assault, 493 ; pre- 
tends to bvirn the fabulous palaces, 493 ; 
declares the number of allies at the siege 
infinite, 493; represents the Tlascalans 
as cannibals, 494 ; suffers a serious re- 
pulse 497 ; rescued from the enemy, 498 ; 
again suffers a defeat — barely escapes 
with his life, 498; resolves to destroy the 
city, 500 ; places a successful ambuscade, 
500 ; provides cannibals with food, 501 ; 
charges the Spaniards witt procuring 
human flesh for his allies, 501 ; in pos- 
session of seven-eighths of the city, 502 ; 
tortures his prisoners, 505 ; motive not 
understood in Spain, 507; policy, result 
of, 508 ; governed by policy, 508 ; 
triumphs over Las Casas, 508 ; exagge- 
rations accounted for, 509 ; exaggera- 
tions reduced to reality, 509 ; one of the 
great men of his age, 510; eclipsed by 
Pizarro, 511. 

Council of music at Tezcuco, 47. 

Cozumel, Island of, 292 ; ruins on, 294. 

Cross, the ancient magnetic, 153 ; offering 
children to, 158; great antiquity of this 
emblem, 153; on the ancient coins of 
Sidon, and modern — the emblem of 
Ashteroth, the Queen of Heaven, 153; on 
it Alexander nailed 2000 Tyrians, 155. 

Criticism of Spanish historians, 77. 

Cuba conquered by Velasquez, 283; mal- 
contents led by Cortez, 284. 



INDEX. 



531 



Cuemavaca, its attractions — capture of, by 
Cortez 473 ; made his residence, 511 ; 
second expedition to, 600. 

Cuetravacin, emperor, death of, 449. 

Cuitlahuatzin, emperor. See Cuetrava- 
cin. 

Cuyocan assigned to Olid in the siege, 479. 

De Alva, Fernando, genius of, 57 ; as a 
witness, 58 ; wrote fifty years after Dias, 
23 ; a quadroon, 23. 

Decline of ancient nations, cause of, 156. 

De Lugo, relieved by Alverado (Tobasco), 
320. 

De Nonville, defeated by the Iroquois, 371. 

Desert of the table-land, 122. 

Devil, the part assigned him in Aztec his- 
tory by the monks, 40 ; his part trans- 
ferred afterwards to the Virgin, 40. 

Diaz, Bernal, the ghost of, evoked, 22; 
notice of, 95 ; probable origin of this 
myth, 79 ; deficient in morals, 85 ; rails 
at Las Casas, 96 ; the purpose for which 
we use the book, 313 ; why the charge 
of cannibalism and human sacrifice intro- 
duced in, at an earlier date than by Cor- 
tez, 335; charges human sacrifice against 
Montezuma, 335 ; describes a pretended 
overthrow of Sempoallan idols, 345 ; 
account of the destruction of the ships, 
349 ; ignorance of the route of march, 
352 ; shows total ignorance of the cha- 
racter and tactics of the enemy, 355 ; 
gives an account of the Cholula massa- 
cre, 382 ; makes Cortez preach Roman- 
ism to Montezuma, 399 ; exaggerates the 
forces of Narvaez, 404; invents the 
piety displayed at Tobasco, 322; at Sem- 
poalla, 345 ; at Tlaseala, 373 ; at Mexico, 
397-403 ; perpetrates another blunder, 
417; exaggerates the number killed in 
night retreat, 412 ; accuses Cortez of 
secretly setting apart the finest of the 
female captives the night before brand- 
ing, 431 ; says write one, when Gomora 
says eighty, 432 ; makes another un- 
fortunate statement — represents reeds 
growing in a salt lake, 444; more of his 
topographical blundering, 467 ; gives 
account of more woman-branding 469 ; 
again blundering — causing water to run 
up hill, 467 ; repeats his stereotype 
phrases, 477 ; again reduces the nume- 
rals of Cortez, 494. 

Discovery of ruins in Yucatan, 283 ; efiect 
of, 290, 



Discrepancies among historians, 92 ; in 
the narrations, 291 ; difficulty of writing 
history, &c., 93. 

Dupaix and Stephens, the first asserters 
of Indian origin of antique C. A. civili- 
zation, 25; notice of, 107; describes 
infant sacrifice at Palenque, 158. 

Dupaix' representation of woman and 
child at Palenque, Phoenician Ma- 
donna ? 157 ; describes infant sacrifice 
to the cross, 159. 

Egypt, Noah pretended king of, 147 ; 
Mizraim, pretended king of, 147 ; Shep- 
herd kings of (name of reproach), 147 ; 
Shepherd kings, their expulsion, effect 
of, 149 ; " Osiris Denis," king of 211 ; 
succors Cadiz or Tartesse, 213. 

Egyptian analogies, 146 ; ancient Ameri- 
cans not, 146 ; obstacles to migration, 147; 
prosperity, era of, 148 ; Central Ameri- 
can ruins remind us of, 146 ; ruins as 
venerable as, 146 ; in their obelisks, note 
(2) page 179 ; or painted statues, hiero- 
glyphical tablets, and plinths, notes (3), 
(4), page 179 ; in their inscriptions, note 
(7), page 182 ; sculpture, note (5), page 
181 ; in their paintings, note (6), page 
181 ; in common emblems, note (8), 
page 182 ; in their pyramids, note (9), 
183 ; not less in dimensions, note (10), 
184 ; in the stone casing of pyramids, 
note (11), page 184; in excavating 
sepulchres, note (12), 184; in celebrat- 
ing victory, (13), 185 ; in their approxi- 
mations of the arch, note (14), 185 ; 
Central Americans not, in truncating 
their pyramids, note (15), page 186 ; did 
not embalm, note (16), page 186 ; no 
sacred animals, note (17), page 186; 
Philistian, Phoenician gods are, 147. 

Egyptians, Christians (nominal) imitate, 
244; ethnologist in Indian dialects, 46. 

Enslavement of the Indians, 279. 

Era succeeding the Greeks, 170. 

Ethnological Society, American Trans., 
vol. 1, 1845, contains critique on Aztec 
2jicture writings, by Hon. Albert Galla- 
tin, 25 ; evidence, efi"ect of emperor's 
favor on, 81. 

Evidence, proper judges of, 176. 

Extinction of races, law of, 169. 

Fables, new ones, more reduction by DiaZ; 

494. 
Ferdinand, king, vindication of, 273. 



532 



INDEX. 



Pernando de Alva, 57 ; as a witness, 58 ; 

flourished fifty years after Diaz, 23 ; 

Don, Lord of Tezcuco — friend of Cortez, 

47, 451. 
Plotilla, difficulties encountered in its con- 
struction, 435-439 ; divided in the siege, 

490. 
Foreign policy of the Aztecs, 123. 
Founding of Mexico and Tacuba, 48. 
Fouseca, President of the Council of the 

Indias, 347; imprisons Puerto Carrero 

for his gallantries, 348. 

Gallatin, Hon. Albert, criticises the alleged 
Aztec picture writings for American 
Ethnological Society, 25 ; the first to 
scrutinize them, 91 ; also pointed out 
discrepancies of the Spanish historians, 
91 ; by collating, 92. 

G-allies incapable of crossing the ocean, 
175. 

Gaudalete, field of, 241 ; how the faithful 
regarded it, 244 ; first day of the battle 
of, 246 ; the battle of, continued, 248 ; 
religious results of the victory of, 248. 

G-enius of the Arabs for the arts of peace, 
248. 

Geology of a country producing precious 
metals (Chapter IV.), 129 ; in Mexican 
history, 129 ; the gold digger's, 131. 

Gilutepeque, south of Mexico, Cortez cap- 
tives, 473. 

Gold, value of, remitted to Spain, 83 ; why 
the Aztecs ceased to wash, 112 ; and 
silver procured in different ways, 112 ; 
passion for, triumphed, 113 ; diggers, 
civilized and savage, difference between, 
129 ; digger, a geologist, 130 ; digger's 
geology, 131 ; digger's speculation on 
floods, 132; diggers avoid primitive 
rocks, 134; search for, in beds of ex- 
hausted rivers, 130 ; bewildering specu- 
lations, 131 ; first bartered for, 299 ; 
Grijalva barters for, at Bandera river, 
300 ; the only god of the Spaniards, but 
the adoration of the Virgin and cross 
their religion, 333 ; difference between 
Spanish and Saxon diggers, 131 ; fields, 
why more productive in the hands of 
Saxon, 136. 

Gomora, chaplain of Cortez, leading his- 
torian of the conquest, 22 ; is the De 
Foe of historians, 22 ; makes Cortez 
his Crusoe, 22 ; when he says eighty we 
must write one, says Diaz, 432 ; de- 
nounced by Las Casas, still a historic 



authority, 432 ; his fabulous campaign 
of Tepeaca, 432 ; studs the desert with 
fabulous cities, 432. 

Greek civilization of Oriental origin, 169 ; 
ignorance of antiquity, 170 ; commerce, 
character of, 170. 

Grijalva sails from Cuba, and discovers 
Yucatan, 291 ; expedition terminates, 
302 ; barters for gold, at the Bandera 
river, 300 ; is fumigated with copal, 
300 ; expedition of, returns to Cuba, 
302. 

Gua,cahula, an Indian tribe, joins Cortez, 
432 ; expedition to, panic-stricken, but 
succored and led by Cortez to victory, 
433. 

Guadalupe, street leading to, gained, 502. 

Guastipeque, captured by Sandoval, 468 ; 
beautiful gardens of, 472. 

Guatamozin, 461 ; appearance of flotilla, 
effect on him, 462 ; his heroism, 463 : 
line of defence, 463 ; prefers death to 
surrender, 503 ; capture of, 504 ; torture 
of, 505 ; motive for inflicting it, 606 ; 
a youthful hero, 612 ; understood the 
intentions of Cortez, 605. 

Hakal (Haxal or Xakal) silver-mines, 136. 

Hawks, Kev. Dr., translates Ribero, 23. 

Hercules, his pillars, 152 ; deified, at Tar- 
shish (Cadiz), 151; the story of, 153; 
adored at Tarshish, 151 ; why repre- 
sented in Grecian story, &c., &c., 170 ; 
is the Palenque statue? 174; the Great, 
son of Osiris, 214 ; why supposed by the 
author to personify Rameses V., 216 ; 
canonization of, 219 ; successors of, in 
Spain, 220 ; the Grecian, at Tartesse, 
223 ; unpoetical picture of, 224 ; true 
character of the Great, 224. 

Hieronomites, an honorable order of 
monks, 437. 

Historians (Spanish) of the Conquest, 76; 
discrepancies among, 82 ; modern, of 
the Conquest, 97; at Mexico, 104; dis- 
carded monkish, resuscitated by Ro- 
bertson, 310 ; shed no light on Tlascala, 
382. 

Historic material, how to be gathered, 31. 

History, writing of, relative to the new 
world, restricted to persons in the 
priestly office, 23 ; how composed, 23 ; 
how to be published, 23 ; to be licensed 
by seven censors, 23 ; Aztec, intermin- 
gled with romance, 82 ; of the Conquest, 
difficulty of writing, 93 ; of America 



INDEX. 



533 



(Robertson's) notice of, 105 ; why its 
modern improvement has not reached 
Mexico, 775 MSS., their character, 86. 

llolgin Grarci seizes Guatamozin, 605. 

Huaxotzingo (Guajotzingo) village of, 
386. 

Human sacrifice first mentioned, 301 ; 
tales of, not reliable, 24 ; how they ori- 
ginated, 24 ; the fable Cortez carried 
from Yucatan to Mexico, 25. 

Humboldt, Alexander Von, 107. 

Indian civilization, origin of the idea of, 
287 ; system of hostilities, 26 ; tradition, 
its value, 42 ; traditions number legion, 
43 ; languages barren, 43 ; tradition 
alone suppoi-t Spanish histories of the 
Aztecs, 44; tradition not reliable evi- 
dence, 44; agrarian laws, 64; social 
system peculiar, 65 ; all have a family 
type, 66 ; tribal divisions, 63 ; their efiect 
of tribal divisions, on inheritance and 
marriage, 63 ; war, effects of dilatory 
movement on, 352 ; monarchy doubtful, 
67 ; inscriptions, 182 ; idolatry doubt- 
ful, 292 ; cannibalism and human sacri- 
fice, charge of, when invented, 334; 
war, effect of retreat on, 409 ; outbreaks 
styled rebellion and apostacy, 429 ; 
auxiliaries march with Cortez, 442 ; 
peculiarities in war, 499 ; allies at the 
siege, Cortez declares were infinite, 493 ; 
information of monks about Indians — 
where obtained? 40; their federative 
system, 61 ; their law of descent, 62 ; 
lords of the forest doomed, 33 ; more 
wasted by destruction of the forests than 
by Spanish cruelty, 34; effect of sub- 
jecting them to task-labor, 35, 279 ; now 
repeopling Spanish America, 21 ; fabu- 
lous number engaged in transporting 
the flotilla, 439 ; in the rear of Cortez, 
break out into rebellion, 491 ; absurdity 
of assigning a Jewish origin to, 35; 
one of primitive races, 36 ; have some 
vague notions of religion, ghosts, and 
spirits, 44 ; represented by Spaniard as 
pagans, 44; by us as monotheists, 44 
their alleged mythology fabulous, 44 
tribal divisions, restrictions on marriage 
64 ; Moorish character given to, 84 
when discovered, 278 ; to enslavement 
of, 279; effect of slavery on, 281 
their numbers when first discovered, 
279 ; benefited by the controversies of 
the monks, 280; when first charged 



with idolatry, 294; when first charged 
with human sacrifice, 301 ; fabulous 
numbers of, got rid of in night retreat, 
414; number subjected to baptism, at 
Mexico, the first year, 509; all of one 
type, 516. See Mexicans. 

Indio-monkish tradition, 44. 

Indio-Spanish traditional history, 88. 

Indulgences, the monk Urea brings to New 
Spain for sale, 469 ; he amasses a for- 
tune by sale of, 469. 

Influence of Holy Ofiice (Inquisition) on 
literature, 86. 

Information of monks about Aztecs, where 
obtained ? 40. 

Inquisition kept alive Spanish fanatics, 85. 

Inquisitor, sanction of, not relied on, 21 ; 
licenses the historians, 32. 

Inquiry, result of, 78. 

Intermarriage with Indians, effect of, 179. 

Investigation, author's qualification for 
conducting one, 77. 

Iroquois (Six Nations), ancient extent of 
their dominion, 34; protected Dutch 
and English settlers, 34; defeat De 
Nouville, 371. 

Iztapalapa, topography of, 446 ; Cortez 
entrapped at, and retreats at night, 446 ; 
affair, explanation of, 448 ; Sandoval to 
march to, 480 ; Sandoval, from Iztapa- 
lapa to camp of Cortez, 480. 

Jalapa, plateau of, 117; the plant jalap, 

117. 
Jews, their color various, 37 ; Indians 

not Jews, 37. 
Joltoca laguna, Joltoca village captured 

by Cortez, 466. 
Juan Diego, his pretended interview with 

the Virgin, 88. 

Kingsborough, Lord, character of, 68 ; 
attempts to prove the visit of Apostle 
Thomas, 35 ; attempts to prove the 
Jewish origin of the Indians, 35 ; mad 
enthusiasm benefits the world, 90. 

Las Casas denounces Gomora, 22 ; his cha- 
racter, 34, 281 ; assailed by Diaz, 96 ; his 
office and title, 334; denounces the 
Cholula massacre, 381 ; circumvented 
by Cortez, 437. 

Latin cross, emblem of the goddess Ashte- 
roth, 24; at Tyre and Nineveh, 152. 

Law of the forest, 34 ; of Aztec succession, 
62. 



534 



INDEX. 



League of the Iroquois (Morgan's), 105. 
Learning, progress of, among the Arabs, 

254 5 of Arabs disseminated through 

Europe, 257. 
Leon (Captain), with Alvarado covers 

night retreat, 411. 
Leon, kingdom of, founded by Pelagius, 

265. 
Lerdo de Tajede, notice of, 104. 
Libyans deify Neptune, 221. 
Llorente, Don Juan Antonio, notice of, 

303. 
Lords of the forest doomed, 33. 

Magnetic cross (ancient), 152. 

Maguey (aloe) or century plant, 120. 

Maguey, fields of, 123. 

Mahomet's birth, time and place of, 238. 

Malinche (Marina), a present to Cortez at 
Tobasco, 323; the joint property of 
Cortez and Puerto Carrero, 323 ; at last 
marries Juan Javaniello, 324; a female 
Joseph ! 326. 

Maps used in this chapter, 452. 

Manilla company, 127. 

Mankind not alone created for the eastern 
continent, 35. 

Medallion (copper) at Palenque, 160. 

Mexicalzingo, its topography, 453. 

Mexican canals and causeways, 456. 

Mexican Indians (Aztecs), for what pur- 
pose they used gold, 130 ; ambassadors 
at Vera Cruz, 336, 337, 338 ; ambassa- 
dors at Tlascala present Cortez $3000 
in gold, 372. 

Mexicans prepare ambuscades for Cortez, 
386 ; give Cortez a public reception, 395 ; 
slaughtered by Alvarado, 402 ; assail 
the Spaniards in the city, 406 ; light 
watch fires on approach of Cortez, 444; 
resolved to die in defence of their capital, 
464 ; routed at Xochimilco, 475 ; renew 
the battle of Xochimilco, 475 ; continue 
to fight on the causeways, 484; construct 
a ditch and breastwork, 489 ; take shelter 
in the enclosure of the great mound, 
490 ; remarkable courage exhibited by, 
491 ; preferred death to slavery and 
torture, 491; rout Alvarado and torture 
to death the prisoners taken, 495 ; again 
and again restore their defences, 495, 
496; have the advantage for the first 
twenty days, 496; remarkable fortitude 
of, 496 ; inflict a fearful retribution, 498 ; 
again torture Spanish prisoners to death 
in sight of Alvarado and Sandoval, 499 ; 



assume the offensive, 500 ; miserable 
condition of, 502 ; no longer able lo re- 
store their defences, 502 ; slaughter of, 
continued, 503 ; what they really were, 
623. See Aztecs. 

Mexican valley, return to (Chapter XII.), 
427 ; lagunas, not lakes, 434 ; conquest, 
histories of — their attractions, 437 ; sur- 
vey of, 452 ; causeways, 452 ; trenches, 
how made, 496 ; defences — probable 
manner of their construction, 497 ; pri- 
soners tortured to death, 505 ; empire, 
doubtless a confederacy, 522 ; war dif- 
ferent from our own Indian wars, 622. 

Mexico, founding of, 48 ; its lagunas the 
seas of Gomora, 22 ; why Spanish critics 
have neglected the history of, 84 ; a 
country of silver, 112 ; a country isolated, 
112 ; a country in the clouds, 116 ; a 
country of table land, 123 ; prepara- 
tion for a march to, 386 ; Cortez enters 
the valley of, 386; first seen by Ordaz 
from Popocatapetl, 385 ; Cortez' entry 
into, 395 ; peculiarities of its loca- 
tion, 397 ; hostilities break out at, 405 ; 
city of its peculiar topography, 454; 
volume of water in valley of, not greater 
in time of Cort«z than now, 455 ; effect 
upon it of increasing the volume of water, 
466 ; floods that have occurred at, 457 ; 
the siege of (Chapter XIII.), 461 ; re- 
connoissance of, as far as Tacuba, 467 ; 
second reconnoissance of, 476 ; character 

< of second reconnoissance of, 476 ; its 
capture and destruction (Chapter XIV.), 
488 ; fabulous palaces of, Cortez pre- 
tends to have burnt, 493; hunger, thirst, 
and small-pox in, 494 ; Cortez resolves 
to demolish, 600 ; city of, no impression 
made on, in first forty-five days, 500 ; 
Cortez' possession of seven-eighths of, 
502 ; famine in, 502. 

Migration, obstacles to Egyptian, 145. 

Miner (silver), seeks the primitive, 135. 

Miners' geology, practical, 131. 

Mines (Real del Monte), 137. 

Mining, chemistry of, 134. 

Miracles, how they are proved, 82 ; victory 
of Tobasco a, 322. 

Mitla, fortifications of, 165 ; bronze tools 
found at, 165. 

Modification of races, 36. 

Molech (Saturn), infants sacrificed to, at 
Palenque, 24. 

Monkish historians appear about the time 
of Diaz, 22 ; their productions absurd, 



INDEX. 



535 



contradictory, and impossible, 22,- their 
real object, 22 ; authors claim the Phoe- 
nician Madonna, infant, and cross as 
Romish, 25 ; where they acquired infor- 
mation, 40. 

Monks, and zealots, how they invent 
history, 325; Hieronomite an honorable 
order of, 437. 

Montezuma, history of, rewritten, 26 ; with- 
out a Moorish dress, 33 ; his empire 
similar to that of the Iroquois, 78 ; re- 
presented equal to that of Germany, 82; 
the Sultan of Spanish historians, 85 ; 
his famous present to Cortez, 332; falsely 
charged with human sacrifice, 335 ; for 
what purpose charge invented, 336; real 
as well as apocryphal presents, 336; 
sends rich presents to Cortez at Cholula, 
372 ; urges Cortez to visit Mexico from 
Cholula, 386 ; his first interview with 
Cortez, 399; seized by Cortez, 400 ; 
appoints Spaniards to collect his revenue, 
401 ; but a tool in the hands of Cortez, 
402 ; slain by his own people, 406. 

Moorish character given to Indians, 84; 
factitious court and capital of Monte- 
zuma, 397. 

Morgan, Lewis H., notice of, 105. 

Moslems invited into Spain, 232 ; decay 
of, cause, 267. 

MS. histories, their character, 87 ; of three 
kinds, 87. 

Mural crown of Astarte recognised, 160 ; 
crown of Hercules recognised, 163. 

Muster of forces at Tlascala, 442 ; for the 
siege, 479. 



Nantla, in the forests of, vanilla produced, 
117. 

Narvaez disturbs, by his arrival, the policy 
of Cortez, 402 ; Cortez marches against, 
463 ; vanquished by bribery of his offi- 
cers, 404; forces correctly stated by 
Cortez, 404 ; forces exaggerated by Diaz, 
404. 

National Intelligencer on Mexican history 
and antiquities, 27 ; extracts from Hon. 
Lewis Cass, 27. 

Navarre founded by Zimines, 266. 

Neptune deified by the Libyans, 221. 

Nineveh, Latin cross at, 152 ; in her great- 
est prosperity, 166; commerce of, 166. 

North American Quarterly for October, 
1840, contains review by Lewis Cass, 
25 ; races not of Jewish origin, 35. 



Obelisks, Central American, not Egyptian, 
146. 

Object of Cortez' letters, 80. 

Olid, Christopher, assigned to Cuyocan, 
480. 

Olmedo, priest, explains the superiority of 
the image of the Virgin and cross over 
the Indian gods, 334. 

Ordas, ascent of Popocatapetl, 384. 

Osborn, Rev. Wm., the orientalist, 159 ; 
recognises our engraving of an American 
goddess as Ashteroth, 160. 

"Osiris Denis, King of Egypt," 210; re- 
lieves Tartesse, 212 ; believed to be 
Rameses IV., 216. 

Otomas, expedition to, 600. 

Otumba, battle of, 418; magnitude of the 
battle, 418 ; battle concluded, 419 ; re- 
sults of the battle, 420 ; enters into 
alliance with Cortez, 451 ; plains of 
topography, 454. 

Pachuca, silver mine of, 136 ; its topo- 
graphy, 454. 

Painted statues (Central American), 146; 
sculpture, 146. 

Paintings (Central American), Egyptian, 
146. 

Palace of Aezahualcoyotl, 50 ; Tezcocingo, 
52. 

Palenque, infant sacrifice at, 158 ; cross, 
157; and Madonna and infant, 188; 
Molech or Saturn at, 157; theory of 
Phoenician origin not new, 162 ; archi- 
tecture, Greeque antique, 163 ; Doric, 209; 
Phoenician resemblances recapitulated, 
163. 

Pelagius founds the kingdom of Leon, 265. 

Peregrine pass, 127. 

Perote, road across the mountain of, 118. 

Philistia, 149. 

Philistians "helpers of Tyre," 150. 

Phoenicia, 149 ; its prosperity for the 430 
years Israel abode in Egypt, 149 ; in 
time of Joshua, 156. 

Phoenician, alleged MS. (Votan), 24, 161 ; 
American antique civilization, 25 ; Ma- 
donna at Palenque, 138 ; extinct empire 
in Central America recognised as, 145 ; 
infant sacrifice at Palenque, 157 ; Ma- 
donna like that of Rome, 157 ; Madonna 
at Palenque, 157; colony, tortoise the 
emblem of, 161 ; analogies, recapitula- 
tion of, 162 ; resemblances at Palenque 
recapitulated, 163 ; look-out stations in 
Yucatan, 295 ; houses of the high places 



536 



INDEX. 



discovered, 293 ; ruins found on the 
island of Sacrificios, 301 ; vestiges in 
the British Islands, 513; probabilities 
of crossing the Atlantic, 614. 

Picture writings fabrications, 21 ; do not 
purport to be originals, 21 ; the monk 
Pietro their ci-devant transcriber, 22 ; 
probably the pious fraud of Bishop 
Zumarraga, 22 ; three burnings of, re- 
corded, 24; Spanish, not Aztec, 90; no 
evidence of being of Aztec origin, 91; 
a specimen, 101 ; first mentioned, 300, 
338 ; worthless inventions, 518. 

Pietro, the monk, ei-devant transcriber of 
pretended Aztec picture writings, 21 ; 
produces copies, but no original, 91 ; 
one of his copies (Codex Vaticanus, 
No. 1556), 91 ; foundation of factitious 
pictures of, 300, 330. 

Piiion, its capture by Cortez, 482. 

Plateau, crossing the, 117. 

Plaza grand, or public square, its topo- 
graphy, 454. 

Prescott, Mr. Wm. H., his authorities, 
romances, 26 ; corrects Robertson in new 
edition, 26 ; notice of, 104, 264 ; his 
early opinion of Spanish historians, 81. 

Proof necessary, 173. 

Puerto Garrero obtains Marina, or Ma- 
linche, 323 ; exchanges her with Cortez 
for the belle of Sempoalla, 343 ; returns 
ambassador to Spain, imprisoned for 
absconding with another man's wife, 
348. 

Pulque, extracted from aloe, "century 
plant," or maguey, 122. 

Pyramids (Central American), had a stone 
casing Egyptian like, 146. 

Queen of Heaven, Phoenician Astarte, 25 ; 

Romish, 25. 
Quetzalcoatl, was he the Apostle Thomas ? 

378. 
Quiahuitzlan, Indian village, 340. 

Races, original division of, 37 ; law of 
exotic, 169 ; have a common hive, 172 ; 
decay of, 174; incongruity of, 177; de- 
cay of exotic, 516 ; decay of modern 
exotic, 517. 

Rameses IV., gods represented in his 
tomb, 147 ; in his tomb representation 
of sea fight, 151. 

Pi,eal del Monte silver mine, 137 ; author 
descends it 1000 feet, 137; its immense 
steam pump, 137; history of, 137; its 



immense extent of galleries, 138 ; its 
company, 138 ; its ores, how reduced, 
139. 

Regla, the refining works of {Patio), 143 ; 
refining mills of, 142 ; Count of, 141 ; his 
fortune, 142 ; how he expended it, 142 ; 
falls of, 140. 

Remedios, hill of, the night of the retreat, 
414, 422; the Virgin of (see Virgin 
Maky). 

Result of author's inquiry, 78. 

Retreat, efiFect of, on Indian war, 409, 410 ; 
of Cortez at night from Mexico, 408. 

River wall of Copan, 161. 

Road from Vera Cruz to the interior, 115. 

Robertson (author of History of America) 
and Prescott have relied on historic 
romances, 26; corrected by Prescott, 26; 
discards living witnesses in order to re- 
suscitate monkish fables, 310.. 

Romance intermingled with Aztec history, 
82 ; the passion for, in Spain, 85. 

Rome, character of her commerce, 171. 

Rosario, shaft of, at Hakal silver mine, 
136. 

Routes (probable) of ancient commerce, 
167. 

Royal councillors license Spanish histo- 
rians, 32. 

Ruins of Yucatan defaced by Castilians, 
299. 

San Christobal laguna. See Joltoca. 
San Diego, castle of, at Acapulco, 127. 
Sandoval marches to Chalco, 468 ; to 

Guastapeque, 468 ; to Iztapalapa, 480 j 

to Cuyocan, 483 ; to Guadalupe, 483. 
Sahagan, " father of Aztec history," 40. 
Sailing vessels prior to galleys, 174. 
Saracens, cause of success of, 239 ; genius 

for the arts of peace, 248. 
Sarmiento, his fabulous history of the 

Incas, 87 ; must have been grateful to 

Philip II., 86. 
Saturn (called Molech in scripture) at 

Palenque, 24. 
Saxon, an emigrant race, 38. 
Sempoalla, (Cempoal) an Indian village 

of the coast, 329 ; Cortez' head quarters 

at, 344; alleged human sacrifice at, 344; 

pretended overthrow of idols at, 345. 
Sempoallans dismissed to their homes, 

386. 
Sepulchres in the rock at Mitla, 184. 
Shore, tropical, 116. 
Siege of Mexico, commencement of, 488 ; 



INDEX. 



537 



results of the two first days of, 491 ; 
time occupied in, explained, 521. See 
Mexicans. 

Silver, increased product of, excited 
interest, 22 ; the Aztecs a country of, 
112; and gold, the different ways of 
procuring, 112 ; miner, 133 ; seeks for 
ores in primitive rocks, 135 ; mines, 
127 ; more galleries than Gibraltar, 138. 

Silver mines of Spain, immense yield of, 
226. 

Six nations (Iroquois), their ancient domi- 
nion, 34. 

Slave labor expensive, 167. 

Slavery cannot explain ancient wealth, 
167. 

Smith, Lieut. H. L., U. S. A., survey of, 
460. 

Sochimilco. See Xochimilco. 

Sociedad Mejicana (Mexicana), notice of, 
302. 

Spain established her Mexican dominion, 
33 ; from the traditional era to rise of 
Castilian kingdom, 210; "beginning of 
the historic of Spaine,"210; under the 
successors of Hercules, 220 ; immense 
yield of silver in, 226 ; traditional ac- 
counts of the mines of, 228; Cartha- 
ginians invited into, 230 ; under the 
Carthaginians, 231 ; Tarik invades, 240 ; 
Gothic preparation for the defence of, 
241. 

Spaniards lose, to the close of the Tlascalan 
war, fifty-five men, 370 ; return to the 
valley of Mexico, 391 ; selected by 
Montezuma to collect his revenues, 401; 
number not exaggerated by Cortez, 404; 
assault the great mound, 408 ; night re- 
treat of, 408 ; lose 150 men in retreat, 
412 ; at the hill of Remedies, 414 ; con- 
tinue their retreat, 415 ; gain the battle 
of Otumba, efiect of, 426 ; ten killed 
by a native insurrection, 427 ; 420 
employed in the campaign of Tepeaca, 
429 ; combining the branding, baptizing, 
and violating women, disgust the In- 
dians with Christianity — act like Sepoys, 
431 ; obtain a sure native support, 433 ; 
enter the valley of Mexico, 439 ; enter 
Tezcuco, 439 ; escort the brigantines, 
465 ; sins pardoned by a Pope's bull, 
469 ; suff'er a defeat — cruelties inflicted 
by Mexicans, 498 ; charged by Cortez 
with supplying Tlascalans with human 
flesh, 501 ; now make rapid progress, 
602. See Cortez. 



Spanish authorities, when followed, 21; 
authorities, searcher among, must pro- 
ceed like ancient pilots, 31 ; historians 
of highest rank not to be trusted, 32; 
historians licensed by Inquisitors and 
Royal Councillors, 32 ; America repeo- 
pling by Indians, 33 ; historian's account 
of the devil's leading his peculiar people, 
39 ; histories of the Aztecs, their only 
support tradition, 44; histories of the 
conquest, criticism of, 76 ; histories a 
parody on Joshua, 79 ; when divested 
of Moorish elements, 80 ; historians, 
Mr. Prescott's early opinion of, 83 ; 
historians, their statements impossible 
without the aid of the Virgin, 84; critics, 
why they have neglected the history of 
Mexico, 84 ; fanaticism kejjt alive by the 
Holy Office, 86 ; authors, their verisi- 
militude, 94; Arabs, our indebtedness 
to, 234; quarters in the city attacked, 
406; quarters set on fire, 407; force, 
retreat of, 409, 410 ; successes depress 
Guatamozin, 482 ; lines drawn close 
round the city, 484. 

Steel supplanting bronze, 164. 

Superior, sanction of, not relied on, 21. 

Table-land, country of, 123. 

Tablets, Central American Egyptian, 146. 

Tacuba, founding of, 48 ; Cortez sends 
Ordas to for women, 406 ; 300 houses 
burned in street of, 409 ; the night of 
the retreat, 414, 422 ; the Spaniards at, 
414 ; author's visit to, 421 ; Cortez' first 
reeonnoissance to, 465 ; Cortez' second 
reconnoissance to, 476; assigned to 
Alverado in siege, 479. 

Tacubaya, canal of, its location, 453. 

Talmanalco, village in the valley of Mexico 
entered by Cortez, 387. 

Tarik invades Spain, 240 ; moral power of, 
242. 

Tarshish, place of adoration of Hercules, 
151 ; and its commerce, 150 ; the reli- 
gion of, 152 ; where and what was it, 
150 ; recognised as Tartessus (Cadiz), 
151 ; its ships navigate the ocean, 151 ; 
prophet Ezekiel places it in the first 
rank, 151 ; furnishes tin to Tyre, 151 ; 
sends ships to Britain, 151 ; sends ships 
to colonies, 151 ; deifies Hercules, 151. 

Tartessians first might have crossed the 
ocean, 514. 

Temple found in a deserted district, 296. 

Tepeac. See Guadalupe. 



538 



INDEX. 



Tepeaca, campaign of (Chapter XII.), 
426 ; colony of Seguridad de la Frontera 
at, people enslaved — women branded, 
429 ; disposition made of the women, 
431. 

Teuchille, an Indian runner, called also a 
great lord by Diaz, 336, 337, 338. 

Tezcuco, city of, fabulous, 56 ; without the 
fable, 63 ; the author's visit to, 70 ; a 
mud-built village, 23 ; capital of, an 
imaginary extinct empire, 23 ; where 
Zumarraga pretends he burnt the fabu- 
lous picture writings, 23 ; with Mexico 
and Tacuba lorded over the Anahuac, 
33; alone retained its independence, 33; 
suffered nothing by the war, 33; should 
have flourished, 33 ; colonizes Mexico 
and Tacuba., 42 ; head of the Aztec con- 
federacy, 49 ; its fabled imperial serag- 
lio, 49 ; its fabulous council of music, 

. 47 ; its fabulous hanging gardens, 49 ; 
its fabulous villas, palaces, Ac, 49; ac- 
cording to monk Thomas Gage, 53 ; a 
real as well as fictitious, 53 ; why 
selected as the flotilla station, 440 ; 
Cortez' entry into, 445 ; Cortez fortifies 
Ms quarters in, 445 ; Don Fernando, 
Lord of, 451 ; evacuated on the approach 
of Cortez, 444 ; lake of \laguna or pond], 
its topography, 454. 

Tezcuzingo, fabulous palace of, 52. 

Thomas (Apostle), his alleged visit to 
America, 45 ; how Boturnini pj-otJe« it, 
45; origin of the fable of, 173; was he 
Quetzalcoatl ? 378. 

Tlascala, its history same as Tezcuco, 34 
country of, at the foot of volcanoes, 123 
the war of, Chapter X. ; of Cortez, 360 
according to Diaz, 361 ; according to 
the historians, 362 ; impossibility of 
Cortez' statement of, 362 ; an unfortu- 
nate remark of Diaz about, 364 ; the 
facts in relation to, 365 ; advantages of, 
to Cortez, 366; religious toleration, at, 
367 ; government, 368 ; first battle with, 
369 ; of the geographers, 365. 

Tlascalans have melted away, 34 ; an- 
other battle with, 370 ; success in the 
war, 370 ; an alliance consummated, 
371; hatred of Mexico, effect of, 366; 
loss, seventeen in the first battle, 369 ; 
in the night battle, 379; form an alli- 
ance with Cortez, 372 ; reconciled to 
Cholula by Cortez, 386 ; furnish auxil- 
iaries to Cortez, 386; the eighty trea- 
sure bearers escaped, 412; muster of 



forces at, 442 ; represented by Cortez as 
cannibals, 494; fabulous numbers of, 
employed in the siege, 465, 479 ; Span- 
iards faithfully observe treaties with, 
517. 

Tobasco, the spice of (grain of the myrtle), 
117; Cortez' arrival at, 319; battles at, 
320 ; St. Jago appears, according to 
Gomora, on a white horse at, 322 ; vic- 
tory claimed by Diaz for the Virgin, 
322. 

Toltecs, alleged records of, burnt by the 
Aztec emperor, Ytzcoalt, 24. 

Tornado, the author witnesses at Vera 
Cruz, 113. 

Torquamada, foundation and key of his 
fabulous account of a Tezcuco account- 
book, 39. 

Tradition, Indian, 42 ; Indio-monkish, 44 ; 
appealed to, as authority by Spanish 
authors, 88 ; of no value for want of 
free discussion, 88. 

Traditional knowledge of ancient Ameri- 
can colonies, 515. 

Traditions, patriarchal, 43. 

Twilight (morning) on the desert, 121. 

Tyre, the Latin cross at, 152 ; the Paris 
of antiquity, 155; a jackass on the coins 
of, 154; Alexander crucifies 2000 citi- 
zens of, in contempt of Ashteroth, 155. 

Tyrians migrate to Tartesse, 222. 

Vegetable kingdoms, view of all, 119. 

Vegetation changes, 118. 

Velasquez conquers Cuba, 283 ; selects 
Cortez to command an expedition, 369; 
countermands his sailing, 369 ; sends 
Narvaez to bring him back, 402. 

Vera Cruz, a tornado at, 113 ; road from, 
to the table-land, 115; is without a har- 
bor, 113 ; why named, 325 ; its locality 
removed three times, 34; vegetation 
changes, 118. 

Veytia (the historian), notice of, 102 ; 
wrote two hundred years after Diaz, 23. 

Victory, celebration of, 185. 

Virgin Mary, her apparition at Guada- 
lupe, pious fraud of Zumarraga, 22 ; 
her glory the object of historians, 22; 
and saints, myths of, to be discarded, 
32 ; of Remedios, her shrine deserted, 
415 ; disputes with St. James the vic- 
tory at Tobasco, 323 ; image of kissed 
and left at Tobasco, 324 ; image of, left 
in charge of Montezuma, 403; Tlasca- 
lans taught her adoration, 373; of 



INDEX. 



539 



Remedies, 415 ; her miraculous powers, 

422 ; her decay, 423. 
Volcano of Popocatapetl, ascent of, 384. 
Votan MS. of Phoerician era, alleged 

burning of, by bishop of Chiapa, 24. 

Weight of authority, 21. 

Women branded, 430, 431, 469 ; and bap- 
tized, 323, 345, 430. 

Women's Promontory (Puerto de las Mu- 
geres), 296. 

Xakal. See Hakal and Haxal. 
Xochimilco, laguiia, topography of, 454; 

effect of increasing its volume, 455 ; 

town, its capture, 474; Cortez, second 

day at, 475. 

Yantepec or Yantepeque, a village of the 
hot country, captured by Cortez, 473. 



Yucatan, ruins of, 146 ; traces of an an- 
tique civilization, discovered first in, 
283; effect of the discovery, 290; 
builders of the ruins of, 285 ; apology 
of Cordova for returning from, 288 ; 
temples in a deserted district, 296 ; the 
extinct race of, 297; the expedition of 
Cordova discovers, 283 ; ruins of, de- 
faced by Spaniards, 299 ; statues over- 
turned by Cortez, 299. 

Yztcoatl, an Indian emperor of Mexico, 
alleged burner of fabulous Toltec pic- 
ture records, 24. 

Zimines founds Navarre, 265. 

Zumarraga, pseudo-burner of fabulous pic- 
ture writings, 21-90; author of that 
pious fraud — the apparition of the Vir- 
gin Mary, 22-90. 

Zumpango laguiia, topography of, 454. 



THE END, 



PUBLICATIONS 

OF 

JAMES CHALLEN & SON, 

No. 25 South Sixth Street, above Chestnut, 
PHILADELPHIA. 



* -3; * Ilessrs. James Challen ^ Son invite special attention to the following stan- 
dard vjorks, all of ivhich are issued in the most elegant style, and are indispensable 
hocks for reference and for the library. Every person who makes any pretension to 
literature — every well-selected public or private library — every preacher, lawyer, and 
teacher, should possess copies of these works. 

By mail, postpaid, on receipt of the retail price. 

The usual discount to the Trade. 

PALESTINE, PAST AND PRESENT. 

By Rev. Henry S. Osbokn, A. M. Illustrated by Steel Engravings, Chromo- 
graphs, and the most exquisite Wood Engravings, all from original designs. 
Eoyal 8vo., 600 pp., on super calendered paper. This work presents an 
epitome of the History of Palestine to the present day, together with 
literary, biblical, and scientific notices. It is the most important, instruct- 
ive, and superbly illustrated work ever issued from the American press. 

" A very complete and compreliensive work." — iV. Y. Churchman. 

'• It ought to be and will be a standard work." — Zion's Herald. 

" It must have been immense labor to have prepared such a work, but it will be of incalculable 
benefit to the biblical student." — Boston Atlas d: Bee. 

" It is an enchanting blending of biblical, classical, and scientific learning, intensely interesting 
both to the scholar and ordinary reader." — Rich>nond Chr. Advocate. 

" It has no ephemeral interest, but a living and permanent value." — N. Y. Independent. 

" It deserves a place in every house where the Bible is read and revered." — Chr. Herald. 

" It is destined to high permanent rank as a contribution to biblical literature." — PhUa. News. 

" An interesting and popular treatise on Palestine, filling a niche hitherto unoccupied in works 
on that country." — Chr. Observer. 

" It will be especially profitable to Bible students and teachers." — N. Y. Evangelist. 

THE CITY OF THE GREAT KING. 

By Dr. J. T. Barclay, of Jerusalem. 627 royal 8vo. pages, and 70 splendid 
Engravings. This is undoubtedly the most complete and valuable work on 
the Holy City ever issued. 

" The most accurate and reliable account of Modern Jerusalem yet given in the English lan- 
guage." — Bihliotheca Sacra. 

'• The volume is a magnificent one." — Southern Baptist Meview. 

" A work of no ordinary interest." — The Churchman. 

" The mechanical execution of the work corresponds to the importance of the theme, and to the 
scientific thoroughness with which the author has fulfilled his task." — North American Review. 

'• It is emphatically the work of the season." — Fresh. Quar. Review. 

" A book of surpassing interest, and of great value to Biblical students." — N. Y. Com. Adv. 

Prices of each of the above works.— Cloth, $3.50. Cloth, full gilt, $4.00. 
Philadelphia Library, $4.00. Half-calf Antique, $4.50. Turkey, full gilt, 
$5.00. Super Turkey, full gilt, or Antique, $5.50. 



(i) 



ii James Challen k Son's Publications. 

Just issued. 

THE CONaiTEST OF MEXICO. 

By R. A. WiLsox, late Judge of Sacramento District, and author of "Mexico 
and its Religion," "The California Law Reports," &c. This is an actual 
History of the Cortez Conquest of Mexico. The pretended Aztec Picture 
Writings and alleged Annals are proved incontrovertibly to be impositions. 
The statement furnished by Cortez, when stripped of Moorish embellish- 
ments and presented in the light of American archeeology, is one of the most 
remarkable events in the history of this continent, far surpassing in interest 
the fables which heretofore have been palmed off as the history of that war. 
The author's personal acquaintance with the people of Mexico of both races, 
and his careful examination of the topography of that country, have enabled 
him to present an accurate and truthful work. 

"From the advance sheets, we judge most favorahly of the work." — Evening Joiirnal. 

"The Chapter Preliminary creates a desire to peruse the entire work, and to satisfy ourselves 
that the author is correct in stating that, beyond a cavil, every vestige of ancient civilization 
on this continent is of Egyptian or Phoenician origio." — Pliila. Inquirer. 

" The book now promised will elaborately present the author's matured thoughts upon this 
highly important subject, and also array the facts which tend to establish the Egyptian and 
Phoenician origin of the vestiges of civilization upon this continent." — N. T. Com. Advertiser. 

"The book is one of conscientious research and historical truth, revealing many important 
additional facts to previous history." — City Itevi. 

"The work will undoubtedly recommend itself to a large circle of readers on each side of the 
Atlantic, by its patient research, its large mass of curious and interesting facts, its ingenious 
arguments, and its lucid, graphic, and attractive style." — Phila. News. 

Royal 8vo., with -maps, diagrams, and fine wood engravings, to illustrate 
the text. Cloth, $2.50. Philadelphia Library, $3.00. Half-calf, $3.50. 

*.::j* Palestine, Past and Present," "The City of the Great King," and 
"The Conquest of Mexico," are*uniform in size and style. 

CAEPEIfTRY MADE EASY. 

By Wm. E. Bell. Practical Carpenter. 38 Plates, 200 Figures. Price $3.00. 
This work teaches a new system of Framing by simple and exact Rules, given 
with mathematical precision, yet in language as free from technical terms 
as the nature of the case will admit ; so that a common school-boy can 
understand them, and every man can be his own carpenter if he chooses. 

IN AND AROUND CONSTANTINOPLE. 

By Mrs. E. Hornby. This is one of the most interesting and fascinating 
works on Oriental life ever issued. It gives a graphic description of the 
Mosks and mode of worship, the Harems, the Sultan, the Valley of Sweet 
Waters, the scenery of the Bosphorus, the Gardens, the Feasts and Fasts, 
the Schools and Customs of the East ; also of the Crimea, the Black Sea, 
and Sebastopol immediately after its capture, and many other items of 
information that can be found in no other work extant. It is elegantly 
issued. 500 large 12mo. pp., $1.25. 

EUROPEAN LIFE, LEGEND, AND LANDSCAPE. 

By an Artist. This is an interesting and instructive series of admirably 
written sketches, descriptive of Life, Legend, and Landscape in Europe, 
and criticisms on the leading works of the fine arts that adorn the galleries 
of England, Germany, and Italy. Bvo. on super calendered paper ; and an 
illustrated title page. Cloth, $1.00. Gilt, $1.25. 12mo. edition, cloth, 75 cts., 
gilt, $1.00. 



James Challen & Son's Publications. iii 

HADJI IN SYRIA. 

By Mrs. Sakah Barclay Johnson. This beautiful book has been well received 
in all sections of this country and in England, and is highly appreciated 
on account of its puritj' and instruction, as well as its elegant style of pub- 
lication. It has been commended by the press everywhere. Parents should 
purchase it for their children ; and as a gift book to a friend it is unsur- 
passed. Pastors and their wives, superintendents of Su^nday Schools, and 
private libraries, should not be without it. Cloth, 75 cents. Gilt, $1. 
Turkey, full gilt, $2.00. 

THE CAVE OF MACHPELAH, AND OTHER POEMS. 

Bj .Tajies Challen, 2d edition, on super calendered paper. Cloth, 75 cents. 
Gilt, $1.00. Turkey, full gilt, $2.00. 

CHRISTIAN MORALS. 

By James Challen. This work assumes, that everything deserving the name 
of "Morality" is to be found in the teachings of Christ and his Apostles. 
It is designed to furnish the reader with clear and just ideas in regard to 
the duties which each man owes to himself and to others, under Christ ; 
with a summary of the leading precepts given us by the "One Lawgiver." 
Cloth gilt, 50 cents. Paper 30 cents. 

THE GOSPEL AND ITS ELEMENTS. 

By .Jajies Challen. 10,000 copies sold. Cloth, 30 cents; Paper, 20 cents. 

"We put in an urgent plea for this bonlv, tbat it may have an extended circulation, th.at the 
rising generation ui-aj' have the result of tlie mature thoughts, in a very concise and condensed 
form, of an able and faithful man of God. who has devoted some thirty years to the study and 
proclamation of the Word of God." — Am. CJiris. Heriew (Cm. Ohio). 

"We are sati.^fied it is admirably well calculated to benefit both the Church and the world. 
The suVjjects examined are primary; and the style is so well adapted to society as we find it, that 
wo can most heartily recommend the brethren to circulate the book."' — Gospel Advocate. 

CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 

By .James Challen. The character of this work may be determined by the 
Table of Contents, viz : I. Introductory Chapter. II. Miracles : their 
Necessity and Design. III. The Introduction of Christianity ; a Demon- 
stration for its Truth. IV. Reasons assigned by Infidels for its Propagation. 
V. The Church a Witness for the Truth of Christianity. VI. Spiritual Gifts 
demonstrated by the early and rapid spread of the Gospel. 5000 Copies 
sold. Cloth, 30 cents. Paper, 20 cents. 

"THE UNION OF CHRISTIANS," and also "THE DEATH OF 
CHRIST." 

By Walter Scott. Nine thousand copies already have been sold of these 
rich and superior works, from the pen of this eminent ptreacher. Ttvo 
volumes in one, a book of 260 pages. Paper, 80 cents. Cloth, 40 cents. 

YALUABLE MAPS. 

Every Minister of the Gospel, Bible Class and Sunday School Teacher, should 
possess copies of the folloiviny Haps, the correctness of which may be fully relied 
upon, as they are constructed from the latest Surveys, and under the most favorable 
circumstances. 

Map of Palestine. 

By Rev. Henry S. Oseorn. This Map was projected from actual and minute 
Surveys. The public can depend upon its being the most accurate and cor- 
rect, as well as the most elegant Map of Palestine ever issued. Colored, 
$1.00. Book Form, $1.50. Colored, Mounted and Varnished, $3.00. Size, 
30 by 50 inches. 



IV 



James Challen & Son's Publications. 



Seven Miles around Jerusalem. 

By Rev. Henry S. Osborn. This beautiful map, in seven rich circular colors, 
gives all the interesting localities within a circuit of seven miles around 
Jerusalem, and will be found valuable to the Bible Student. The surveys 
were all taken under the most advantageous circumstances by the author, 
and a similar Map has never heretofore been issued. Price, Colored, 50 cents. 
Book form, $1.00. Colored, Mounted, and Varnished, $1.50. Size, 22 by 
26 inches. 

Map of Jerusalem and its Environs. 

By Dr. J. T. Barclay, Missionary to Jerusalem. This valuable Map differs 
essentially from the preceding. It gives all the sacred localities in and 
adjacent to the city. It has been endorsed by Professors Robinson, Hacket, 
Dr. Thompson, and Dr. Samson, as the most reliable Map extant. A new 
edition is just issued. Price, plain, 50 Cents. Colored, 75 cents. Book 
Form, $1.00. Colored, Mounted and Varnished, $1.75. Size, 30 by 36 
inches. 

Patriarchal Chain of the Bible. 

By D. M. Grandfield. This beautiful Chart is printed in four rich colors, 
presenting, at a glance, the lineage of Christ from Adam, through both the 
paternal and maternal lines. Many other items of information in reference 
to the Covenant Dispensations, &c., are beautifully arranged in the margin. 
Price, sheets, 50 cents. Mounted, $1.25. 

JUYENILE BOOKS. 

CHALLEN'S JUVENILE LIBRARY. 

For the District, Sunday School, and Family Library, and elegant as gift 
books for the young. These volumes are not sectarian, and are designed 
for Sunday Schools of every denomination. 

Splendidly Illustrated by Fine Engravings on Tinted Paper. Vols, sold separately, 
—Price per Set of 30 Vols., in boxes, $6.00. 



1. Song without Words, 

2. Look Fp, 

3. Home Life, 

4. Isabel ; or Influence, 

5. The Arab, . 

6. The Egyptian, 

7. The Jew, . 

8. Garnered Thoughts, 

9. Wings and Sting.s, 

10. The Young Cottager, 

11. A Handful of Pearls, 

12. Marvels, or Facts in a Fairy Form, 

13. Helen McGregor, Vol. I. 

14. Helen McGregor, Vol. II. 

15. Short Yarns, 



$0.25 
. .25 

.25 
. .25 

.25 
. .25 

.25 
. .25 



16. Perils of the Deep, 

17. Story of a Needle, 

18. Autobiography of a Pen, 

19. Poll Peg, and other Sketches, 

20. Story of a Prince, 

21. Life Sketches, 

22. Gathered Pearls, 

23. The Better Way, Vol. I. 

24. The Better Way, Vol. II. 
35. Select Stories, 

26. John Howard. . 

27. The Whartons, Vol. I. . 

28. The Whartons, Vol. II. 

29. Short Stories, 

30. Alwrid Lind, . 



10.25 
. .25 

.25 
. .25 

.25 
. .25 

.25 
. .25 

.25 
. .25 

.25 
. .25 

.25 
. .25 

.25 



PEARL OF DAYS ; 

Or, The Temporal Advantages of the Lord's Day to the Working Classes. By 
a Laborer's Daughter. A Prize Essay. Five fine Engravings. Cloth, SO cts. 

HEAVEN'S ANTIDOTE TO THE CURSE OF LABOR. 

By John Allan Quinton. A Prize Essay. With a Prefatory Notice, by 
Rev. S. H. Tyng. Four fine Engravings. Cloth, 30 cts. 

BOUND VOLUMES. 

LADIES' CHRISTIAN ANNUAL, Vols. I., II., III., IV., V., & VI., Cloth, 
gilt, each $1.25. Per set, $6.00. 

CHALLEN'S ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY, 576 pp., with numerous Engrav- 
ings. Cloth, $1.25. 











,0 



^0 







^ / 4 i N -s 




v^^^-^^. 






.' xx- .,., ^c=>^:*0H0^ .0-^ ^^^ ^^^ 



.^^ -<- 



<. 




^0* V 






'A > 



> 



^ '■ « 






v^^ 



J> --c^^ 



'/^ 



^O. 









!;^ x^-%. 






■% ^^ 



.0 o 



'' -H. "71) , '*. TT-:''-' •-- "^ ' 



^^%, 



r.'^ 






'o. 



^^ 



,^^ 



^0^^ 



« / 






^^' 



<o- 



v^ 



'%%^ 



■% <i^ 



-^ 



'b 




<^ 



.'.X^ c ° ^ '^ « 




A-^ 



9' >) 















o 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




006 009 373 8 



wm 

ill! Ill ?i 






MM .,. 

lilii:,' ■!!');>!' 
■filii I 'f 



